


An Unknown Edge

by JointExisting



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a Mess (Good Omens), Blood and Injury, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Descriptions of Injury, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Fat Shaming, Head Injury, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars, alternate universe - figure skating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:13:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23096890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JointExisting/pseuds/JointExisting
Summary: Aziraphale had had a thought that day as he stepped on the ice, one he remembered; it was iconic now, he’d said it in interviews, seen it inter-spliced in ‘tribute videos’, had seen it written into stupid lists of ‘moments before disaster’. The thought was:What a name for a figure skater: Fell.Later, he’d hear a reporter remark:How tragic to have a name so accurate.-----figure skating au.Aziraphale knew what it was like to fall. He knew what it was like to watch the world forget him; who he'd been, what he was. He knew the feeling of leaving everything behind. Now, he wanted to know what it felt like to get back up.And with Crowley there at his side, and their promise - their Arrangement - everything would be OK. They would be unstoppable.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 64
Kudos: 93





	1. Lacing Up

**Author's Note:**

> Hello !  
> I'm back with that Figure Skating Alternative Universe I said I mentioned doing in my previous one-shot - _Aim for Silence_. This will be a longer work, and I do have a rough idea of the plotline now, although I'm still undecided on how many chapters it will take to tell the story I want.
> 
> This first chapter includes mentions of hospitals, an anxiety-like attack, and the effects of severe concussions. Please note I have no medical background, and most of what I know about concussions comes from some minor personal experience of them, which I have jacked up to 100. Concussions can be a very serious brain injury and take months to heal; please seek medical attention if you ever sustain one.

**15 years ago**.

Aziraphale stared at the doorway to the rink, taking in what little expense of the ice he could justifiably see from the uncomfortable red bench without having to get any closer. He had his index finger to his mouth again, the smell of freshly-applied clear varnish edging him further toward the blackout anxiety he’d experienced each day since The NHK Trophy.

He should stop putting the touch of polish on; between his fingers being constantly bitten to shreds and the chemicals, the likelihood was he’d soon get some sort of infection. The last thing he currently needed was an infection.

“Avery?”

Aziraphale winced at the sour tone. _Scratch that_ , he thought with a full-body slump, _the last thing I need is interaction_. He raised his head and glanced towards him – dressed all in black, the auburn of his hair bunched on the top of his head, the everyday gentleness in his face replaced by quiet boredom and a scowl. Aziraphale shrunk under the black stare of the glasses. “Anthony.”

“Ouch. What did I do?” He took a heavy seat on the bench, making it squeak, and heaved his backpack on to the floor. “Sorry, sorry. _Aziraphale_. When did you get out of hospital?”

Of course Crowley would fall into their easy banter again, as if Aziraphale had never left; as if nothing had changed. As if just moments ago he’d been mad and now, seemingly, everything was OK again. “I... – well.”

“Where’re your skates?” asked Crowley as he took his _Jacksons_ out and discarded the soakers, sliding his blades into the plastic seat of his black hard guards seamlessly. “You aren’t skating today? Or did you forget them again?” He tossed out one of those here-a-moment gone-the-next smiles.

Behind his glasses it was nearly impossible to see what Crowley was looking at, but Aziraphale knew well enough neither of them needed to stare at their boots or blades to put them on—not even to tie them. Nor did Aziraphale need to turn his eyes from the ice to know Crowley’s head was inclined towards him, and through the patterned darkness of his glasses he was staring at Aziraphale’s tatty trainers. “I didn’t forget them – I-I’m not skating.”

“Awh, what?” Crowley thumped the back of his skate into the matting – Aziraphale ignored the pulse of panic it sent through him. “I was looking forward to jumping triples together again. Beelzebub had me jumping consecutive waltz jumps yesterday.”

“Ah,” said Aziraphale, beginning to chew on his bottom lip; it was already a mess of his previous nibbling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even mean to still be here when you arrived, but time...” He finally looked up, the ache in his neck activating his gag reflexes; he swallowed harshly and located the ancient clock always five minutes behind. “Time got away from me.”

Crowley looked at him as he tautly pulled his laces. “Aziraphale,” he said, quietly, as more skaters flit into the rink. “Are you meant to be here?”

Aziraphale knew that look, that soft hitch in his voice; it reminded him of their first time getting drunk, when Crowley had gotten all sedate and tired and almost fallen into the Bristol canal. “Well...” Moving a hand down to pull the bracelet at his covered wrist, Aziraphale found himself shaking his head before he could think up a convincing lie. “I just wanted to feel the cold, Crowley; the hospital is so warm.”

It was too obvious a thing, to be pinching the bracelet, Aziraphale knew that before Crowley’s nicked hands stopped tying, let his lace go loose, and reached out to push the sleeve up and look at the bracelet, to study the writing and the telephone number. Aziraphale couldn't look at him. The chatter around them, which was impossibly loud and girlish and shouty, ground to a sudden halt as he watched Crowley reach up to pull down his glasses just slightly, to look at him with concerned intensity in his eyes. His lips formed the words Aziraphale didn’t want to hear—not again.

_You’re not calling them. You can't._

Aziraphale ripped his hand out of Crowley’s grasp and lurched to his feet – the dizziness hit him all at once and he collapsed on to the matting, startling a few passing skaters who yelped and leapt back. With the world spinning, and the noises distorting him further, Aziraphale tried to sit up – a hand to his forehead—but not his own.

He managed to focus on Crowley’s face over Beelezebub’s shoulder. “What the Hell are you doing here?” the coach spat out, the dark of their eyes staring straight into Aziraphale’s soul—he tried to shy away, his fever peeking, when the vertigo hit again, followed by a burst of nausea and he was back on the floor, sickness churning his stomach, pressing into his throat and he just managed to hold it down.

“Everyone get clear! _Get clear!_ ” another coach shouted, although Aziraphale couldn’t focus so much on the voices anymore, or the frantic noises of skaters busying about him. The dripping chill on his head was nice, though; it had to be a flannel, or some wet tissue – maybe they’d thrown a skate-cloth on some wet ice.

“Can someone call an ambulance? And the number on his bracelet?” That was Beelzebub, and they were still speaking, trying to keep him awake—he hated when this part happened, when something snapped and all he could feel was the pressure in his head weighing him to the right. “Aziraphale – hey – stay with us.”

It was The NHK Trophy all over again. Aziraphale felt Crowley beside him – he knew him, his aura, the pads of his gloves and the touch of his fingers – and he reached blindly in hopes of clasping on to something real. He needed grounding, needed something to keep him in the present and not floating out in the void of his fizzling head.

His hands shook as they met fabric and with every ounce of strength he held on, taking shaking breaths into Crowley’s leg, where Aziraphale realised he’d been propped from the flashes of sight he managed between eclipses of black spots.

“Get him some salt!” – “Ask for water!” – “Hello? Yes, yes; we’ve found him. He’s here at the rink. We need an ambulance.” – “Keep him awake! Goddammit! _Keep him awake, Crowley!_ ” – “ _Ngk!_ I’m trying!”

 _Too loud. Too much_. Aziraphale lolled on to his left and felt everything _–shift_ abruptly. The floor rolled away from him and he grabbed an arm around his stomach, trying to keep down his breakfast; he’d only get sicker if he chucked up. Food settled everything; food made all the pain go away.

With his other hand, he held tighter on to Crowley, listening to the _shh-shh-shhs_ blowing into his ear as long and lithe fingers, gloves discarded, began to run through his hair, ruffling carefully the honeyed platinum. When a nail clipped his bandage, Aziraphale let out a hiss and then a gasp of pain—and Crowley’s hands were gone. _No—no, dear, Crowley, please, don't go_. It took a few moments to realise he’d said the thoughts out loud, and a second longer to see through the mess of his vision to the faintest smile present on Crowley’s face, even though his expression was otherwise coloured by concern and panic and faint shame.

Aziraphale let the hand on his stomach go and tried to find the strength to reach up and pat the other’s cheek, or hold it, or do _something_ to let him know he had no fault in this, that this was all of Aziraphale’s own mistake for waking up this morning and deciding to leave because he needed to go to the rink, to look at the ice and say _I’ll be back_.

Except, lying on the dirty matting now, he wasn’t sure he would be.

He wasn’t even sure he _could_ \- return to the ice, that is. Until this morning, he hadn’t been sure he’d ever leave the hospital.

The cool wetness on his head had turned to an unpleasant warmth and he swatted it away, gasping at the pain-swell in his shoulder—someone, maybe Beelzebub, had thrown a blanket over him. Aziraphale opened his mouth to scream, but all he found was a sob and then Crowley was shushing him again. Most of the noise had calmed down as skaters were told to get on the ice and away from the commotion, but Aziraphale knew they were watching. Through the clearing fade of his vision, as he swept in and out of consciousness, he could see their faces dart around the edges of the barrier. He wanted to turn away, especially when he finally heard the remark he’d been dreading:

“That’s Avery Fell, right? The one who collided with Sandalphon at The NHK, right?”

Aziraphale groaned. Crowley’s hand moved over his head to cover his ear as a few more comments were carelessly thrown about. It took him a couple of calming seconds to realise the ones making the comments were not the skaters themselves, but the parents sitting idly in the stands and looking down at him. He felt small, smaller than he’d ever felt; he knew most of their faces, knew them by name, usually said a kind _hello_ , and yet there they were gossiping. That was all he was now: _gossip_.

Last year, he’d been the first British male singles-skater to medal at The NHK Trophy since _Robin Cousins_. Now, he was gossip.

A few years ago, he was the first British male singles-skater in _God knows how long_ to win Junior Worlds. Now? Gossip.

Aziraphale tucked his head into the Crowley’s leg and let the darkness swamp him enough to take him away from the talking, the critical murmurs, and the sounds of blades across the ice.

**Present day.**

Aziraphale had always found it blo— _quite_ strange how often he’d heard someone of a stupid disposition remark: “ _all ice rinks smell the same_.”

They most certainly _did not_.

Who were these lucid dreamers wandering from ice rink to ice rink? Had they spent much time smelling the padding of warm-up rooms after a public session? Did they spend much time in the locker rooms smelling the different hair gels, antiperspirants and deodorants of hockey, speed and figure skaters alike? Had they smelled the several brands of lemon spray everyone used to diffuse the horrid smells of their skate bag?

Not even receptions smelled the same. Did those people think every ice rink had a beautiful, warm reception with an automatic air-freshener? Aziraphale could testify against that, especially on the coldest, dampest winter mornings when the ice sheet itself seemed warmer than the rest of the building.

Perhaps they meant that underlying chemical cleanliness? From his experiences, the smell of the rink’s ice was dependent on a few things: One, was simply how many people were currently occupying the ice, scuffing it up, and falling with their (sometimes) muddy clothes. Two, was when had it last been resurfaced; the nicest smelling ice was always the cleanest and wettest.

Third, was blood.

Blood did not smell on the ice unless you were the one in it.

Aziraphale could testify for that.

He paused from tying his laces at the thought, as two children ran past him in bulky blue skates and one tripped, slamming against the padding with a yelp and a, “You pushed me! I’m telling!”

Aziraphale watched the lad shakily stand up, brushing off the inevitable dirt of the floor off his superhero shirt and then immediately he was back on his blades, back to the awkward run-hop-stagger he and his friend had performed before, but this time he went straight to an adult across the room, still tying her own blue plastic skates in a _very_ unsafe way, and he started, as he had said he would, telling her he’d been pushed.

Aziraphale downed his eyes then, looking back to his skates and the lace he’d now have to retie since he’d let it go slack. “Oh...” He went back through the process, pulling the laces outward to tighten them, but not as hard as he would have once done. The feeling of the boot as it compressed and locked his ankle was achingly familiar, but for the moment he pushed those thoughts aside and pulled his bag across to him from where he’d carefully left it beside him on the bench.

“Silly thing,” he muttered harshly beneath his breath, damning the bag as the zip got stuck for the third time. If this wasn’t a divine message, he wasn’t sure what was. Finally he got it open and dug about for his new hard guards with the classy white-marble effect; they were more fiddly than the ones he’d had back in his day, but he wasn’t about to dull his sharpening before he even set blade on the ice. He stopped and considered the books he’d piled in at the last moment, before taking the water bottle out instead. _No, I’m not backing out – definitely not backing out._

He’d paid London prices to skate on that ice, and he was going to do it.

Carrying the book-weighted bag by one strap, Aziraphale breezed through the doors and entered the public ice rink, raising his eyes to see how many people were there; he’d especially picked Wednesday to come for the least amount of people and, thankfully, that seemed to be the case. He counted a young couple holding one another up awkwardly, a few hockey skaters being lunatics (so that hadn’t changed, then), an older man carefully making his way round for the more adventurous exercise, and the children from earlier with their parents, all very slowly pulling themselves along with the barrier as their guide.

 _Oh, dear,_ thought Aziraphale as he placed his bag on a bench he could see from the ice, fastening the clasp at the front before moving toward the open door to the rink. One of the hockey players slammed into the glass a few metres from him and he let out a yelp, but was immediately more embarrassed when she turned to him and said, “Don’t forget to take your guards off, man.”

“Oh, yes, uh, thank you, dear!” Aziraphale replied, leaning over to remove them and sit them on the side of the barrier with his water. When he looked up, the young woman was still standing there, watching him. “Uh? Can-can I help you?” he asked, flabbergasted at her apparent ‘gatekeeping’.

“I just wanna make sure you can get on the ice OK,” she said, false kindness in her voice as she shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. “You look a lil’, uh... shaky?”

Aziraphale flicked his wrists at her. “Oh, no worries, dear! I should be fine—I-I go through this every few months. Takes me a moment, but I get there.” He smiled at her, looking over her shoulder at the rink itself to avoid the sweeping glance she took at his skates—skates which weren’t exactly the run-of-the-mill, I-do-this-casually type, but more the I’m-a-former-competitor type.

“Uh, if you say so?” she replied, before turning and skating off to join her friends, and possibly to recount her and Aziraphale’s meeting if her immediate gesture at her skates and then a swirling motion at her head was anything to go by.

Aziraphale let out a long breath and took the edge of the barrier, stepping on to the ice with a, “Hello, thank you.” If he wasn’t feeling quite so vulnerable, he would have leant down and patted it like the old days, but not today. Nothing, today, had gone very right indeed; he’d been late leaving the shop after opening for only an hour and a half, because of some customers who ended up not buying a single book. (not that he could complain about that, really; what would they have done with a vintage _Austen_?)

Then there was his broken kettle, so he’d made tea on his stove instead, and learnt water boiled in a pan usually reserved for rice had quite a grainy texture and the aftertaste of an almost soupy grittiness. After that, he’d knocked down his favourite vase and it had not only shattered but spilt water all over his living room, so he’d had to drag the rug to the window and hang it there to dry in the sun, only for it to begin raining two minutes after he’d gotten on the bus.

 _Oh, bugger_ , he’d found himself thinking as droplets plinked against the window. _I just hope I remembered to turn off the stove..._

Now, standing on the ice, Aziraphale took a deep breath and tried to think good thoughts – better thoughts. He would not let a day seemingly designed by the Devil himself result in a bad skate. He would _not_. Not again.

Pushing away from the barrier, Aziraphale used his toepicks to get a starting pace before turning his blade out in effortless strokes. Beneath him, the ice felt smooth but quite firm; definite public skating, more geared toward plastic boots, unsharpened rental blades and hockey skates – definitely not meant for his figure blades which had better grip on ‘softer ice’, but it would have to do.

The receptionist hadn’t given him a choice of patch ice, for figure skaters, but he would still have opted for public ice because on public ice there were no coaches shadowing the barriers like wolves in wait, no constant shift between dance and freestyle music, no one running complicated programs, jumping straight past him and, perhaps best of all, no one from The Club.

Because what figure skater in their right mind would want to skate on public ice, if it wasn’t to avoid other figure skaters?

Aziraphale resisted the shiver and carried on skating, adding an easy crossover around the corners. He soon switched to doing crossrolls down both sides, slaloms and backwards skating, catching himself performing three-turns from forwards to backwards and backwards to forwards as though he’d done them just yesterday, or at six o’clock in the morning for warm-up while preparing for a lesson.

In reality he hadn’t done them since January, although sometimes he turned on one foot to address a customer and found the movement quite nostalgic.

Practicing footwork was second nature to him, as it always had been. He’d been a ‘graceful’ skater from a young age; he did not rake his toepick across the ice, he did not wobble on his turns, his foot was always turned out, he was not jerky or clumsy – in fact, his clumsiness off-ice was worse than on-ice.

Later, after getting well warmed up, he slowed as he glided into centre ice, positioning his skates into the classic T-stop of his right turned-out blade dragging behind his forward-facing left. Glancing around him, Aziraphale took a deep breath and stepped into an inside three-turn and, after a check, he swung himself into an outside three-turn on his left blade and a moment later he felt himself be pulled into the upright spin. He came out after only six revolutions, the pinch of a headache threatening, before he went back to practicing his footwork without acknowledging the bewildered stares of the other patrons of the ice who’d witnessed a gentleman of a... _certain age_ , who’d shaken from head to toe before he even got on the ice, suddenly perform a perfect, centred spin. Of course they didn't know who he was; they'd probably never heard of Avery Fell.

It was forty or so minutes before he saw him.

“Oh, _fuck_.” Aziraphale turned on the spot and launched himself up the rink at rule-breaking speed, just missing the young couple and _maybe_ being responsible for the boy falling over, but in Aziraphale’s defence he’d looked wobblier than her, anyway. He pulled up and dared turn to look back into the warm-up area, where three figure skaters had appeared and were dumping their bags, sitting on three different benches to put on their skates in haphazard organisation.

 _Why are they there? Shouldn’t they be in the other rink, getting ready for patch?_ Aziraphale worried his bottom lip and continued watching as a few others turned up. Their conversations were of a particularly animated quality to the point Aziraphale was beginning to understand what was happening. His heart began to beat a little too fast and a scatter of white flooded his vision. With a breath and an absentminded attempt at a couple backwards crossovers – the pleasant slide of his blade and the sitting motion reminding him he was on skates – he managed to clear his head.

A few more moments passed, the incessant bebop of the rink’s music system shutting off, before two coaches strode through the warm-up room in their skates – without guards, as was terribly casual for coaches – and waltzed through the doors and into the public rink.

They were holding those plastic cones, the ones usually reserved for hockey practices, and skating toward the end of the rink where Aziraphale was—alarm flashed through him when he realised one of the coaches, looking rather pissed off and apparently having never aged a day, was Beelzebub. He didn’t recognise the other.

“All right! Clear the area! The top half of the rink will now be us-ss-ed for patch s-ss-katers!” Beelzebub crowed, as they came to a fast stop and then began in a line to cone the area off. They barely gave Aziraphale a glance— _what relief, they haven't spotted me!_ Or- or, at least, hadn’t recognised him.

_I’m not sure what’s worse._

Skating out of their sight, Aziraphale stuck close to the barriers on the far side of the rink, his heart beating louder than he’d care to admit. So, this was how it was today, eh? He should have known; he should have stayed away, should have gotten off the bus a few stops earlier and taken a depressing stroll through St James Park in the rain. Perhaps, if he was careful, he could time his exit, stand in the opposite corner and then skate out as the patch skaters came in—then he could grab his bag and run to the toilets to change out of his skates before leaving discreetly. He could try that new place just down the road to alleviate the depression edging along the fringes of his thoughts; Madame Tracy said they served a wonderful afternoon tea.

Aziraphale heard his heartbeat in his ears as he trailed down the rink, pulling himself into one corner and praying God might show a little mercy. But, it seemed, God was still holding a grudge from whatever he’d done as a child because he must really deserve _those_ figure skaters coming in the door behind him, talking, and then stopping, blinking at him as he blinked at them.

_Oh, dear..._

Gabriel’s face split into a bracketed smile. “Aziraphale!” Michael gave a similarly audible greeting. Uriel stayed quiet, deflective almost, trying instead to look for their coach.

As Gabriel hurriedly made his way to the door, Aziraphale bit back the whine and did the same, T-stopping as the three stepped on to the ice one after another. Almost immediately, Uriel made their excuse and left. _Why can’t the others do that?_ Aziraphale thought dejectedly, trying hard not to look quite as done as he felt.

“Hey, _you!_ ” Gabriel said in American, opening his arms before downing them quickly. “Haven’t seen you in a while – well, I mean, on the street (“On the street,” Michael confirmed, nodding), but not on the ice I think... I think for probably – what, fifteen years?”

“Oh, not as long as that; I popped in at Christmas – with friends,” Aziraphale replied at once with a downward wave of his hand, trying to dampen the temper he could hear in the other man’s voice. “Oh, that reminds me! Congratulations on getting your photo in the paper.” A pause. “Again.”

Gabriel flashed him an obscene smile, pressing his skates backwards into a lemon to add dramatic effect. “What do you expect? Second at adult worlds, baby!” He picked at the ice with his ‘toe and said, “Anyway, uh...” Gabriel clapped his hands together, looked at Michael, and then turned to Aziraphale with a purse-lipped grimace. “Why are you here?”

Wetting his eyes with a blink, Aziraphale exclaimed, “Oh, uh...” He clasped his own hands, raising his shoulders as he looked away and down. “Just... thought I’d... have a skate – felt like it, dreary weather out there, and-and a terrible day for selling books, you understand.”

“Can’t say I do,” Gabriel replied, frowning expectedly at Aziraphale. “But, you aren’t thinking of... _coming back_ , are you?”

“Uh, well...” Aziraphale shook his head quickly and ignored their searching eyes. “No, no. No. Not after... after the incident—uh, accident.”

Michael inclined her head forwards, her frail lips pinched. “You don’t have to be competitive,” she said, eyeing him in a manner most indiscreetly. “You can be a... _recreational skater_. Take part in the club’s Christmas show—in the back, in a line, doing repetitive three-turns.”

Gabriel jumped in before Aziraphale had a chance, not that he had been preparing a witty remark or such – in fact, he was more than a little crestfallen at Michael’s words. “Yes! Yes.” Gabriel gestured at Michael, nodding animatedly. “We just lost a skater recently – you could take his spot!”

“Lo-lost?” Aziraphale asked in a rather belated manner at Gabriel’s tone.

“I think it was a heart attack; I didn’t read the memo properly.”

“It was a car crash,” Michael corrected and Gabriel clapped his hands and gave a casual ‘yes! That’s right’, before they both turned expectedly to Aziraphale.

There was a pause in the conversation.

Suddenly, the coach Aziraphale hadn’t recognised hollered Gabriel’s name and the man threw his hand up in acknowledgement, understanding he needed to leave for his lesson. “Heh, well, you just think about that, all right Avery?” he said, moving his weight from skate-to-skate. “Get you outta that bookshop a few nights a week and, uh... maybe help you in the ol’...” Gabriel patted his own stomach a couple of times.

 _Aziraphale._ “Ah..." Aziraphale replied, his feelings trodden, placing a hand on his stomach. They might as well have walked over him without guards on for how he felt suddenly, only able to watch as Gabriel and Michael took off toward the coned area to meet their coaches by the barrier. Aziraphale wrung his hands and turned away to skate slowly toward the door he’d first come through, minding the children from earlier who had started up a loud chatter about the ‘cool’ figure skaters and their ‘amazing’ jumps.

The sound of blade hitting ice on a particularly heavy jump made him turn momentarily in a burst of panic, only to see Gabriel looking across at him as Uriel performed a clean double salchow. The smiles across their faces – and Michael’s snide remarks – had truly summed up Aziraphale’s day at the rink, as he kicked the snow off his blades and put on his guards, taking his water and making his way across to his bag.

He fell on to the bench and bit out his frustrations in the long sort of sigh authors usually write as ‘ _the moment_ ’, when the main character, played for a sucker and beaten down by the supposed baddies, clenches their fist and gets back up again, sweeps their arm in a dramatic gesture and declares _he will win!_ Except, for Aziraphale, there was currently nothing to win.

There were no stakes. No sponsors. No coach. No club. No competitions. No season.

There was just him: a bookseller with some pudge, a love of good food, a heavy wallet, and a fine selection of vintage wines in the cupboard best drunk reading vintage books. Yes, that sounded better than the rink, anyway.

Aziraphale leant down to untie his skates, replacing his hard guards with soft ones after wiping down his blade. He carefully slid them into the bag beside his books and made to stand, throwing a fleeting glance down the rink to where Gabriel and the others were before he quickly and discreetly left. He thanked the reception staff who loudly exclaimed, “See you soon!”

As he stepped out into the downpour, Aziraphale dragged a hand through his hair, minding his scar, and said to himself, “No, I rather think you won’t.”


	2. Safe and Sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a promise, usually unspoken, between Aziraphale and Crowley.
> 
> That promise is _no one can hurt you now_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up splitting this chapter in two, as I thought this first part was better off as its own chapter after editing.  
> I had actually meant to have this up a little earlier, however I've been off after sustaining a minor concussion.

Anthony J. Crowley was used to the hustle and bustle of patch ice and the fuelled-pace of hockey ice. He was, however, not as used to the rowdiness of public ice as he’d been as a teenager; back then, he’d sneak on between patch sessions when he should have been sitting with Aziraphale in the cafe studying to keep pace with their academics. But unlike Aziraphale’s languid yards of handwriting over their systematically-lined paper, Crowley would more or less scribble whatever the required text was before ditching his books to race around with the hockey idiots, and chuck a couple of dangerous triples to thrill people. He’d gotten banned nearly 12 times in all, his longest being two years; he was still pretty proud of the certificate.

But now, standing on the edges of the rink, he stared in abject horror at the dysfunctional movement of limbs as people flung themselves about without any balance and toppled from leaning just a little awkwardly. It did not leave him feeling at all happy about being on the scuffed, snowy ice—even less so when a teenage marshal approached and _politely_ (some would say; Crowley would not) asked if he could remove his ‘sunglasses’.

Crowley immediately recognised her from patch: she’d nearly skated straight into him a couple of times since she’d moved up from Learn-To-Skate, and now, with her pinched smile and wearing her STAFF jacket, it was slightly too obvious they had tension. Rolling his shoulders, sticking the back of his blade into the ice, Crowley gave her a charmed smile and asked, “Why?”

“Oh, it’s just... policy,” said the marshal a slight tartly, adjusting her slim weight over the figure skates.

“Ngk.” Crowley let out a short, un-amused sigh. He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead and said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t take them off.”

“Well, then, sir, I’m going to have to ask yo-” she began gesturing at the exit.

Crowley interrupted her, “They’re prescription. I’m not safe on the ice without them—you’ve met me on patch, kid, you know I have to wear a sash when I take ‘em off, and I don’t see any sash here, or anyone on this ice who’d pay attention to me wearing one.” He squared her with a glare behind his glasses, staring her down glumly; all he’d ever really needed was his presence for most people to back the Hell off. He wasn’t about to let this kid be his undoing. “All the staff know I have to wear them; you’re wasting your time if you try and throw me off. I’ll just go find Dagon-”

She let out a frustrated sigh, pressing her shoulders down as muttered, “Fine.” She turned and took off into the crowds.

Crowley stuck out the tip of his tongue and corrected his glasses, pushing them firmly back over his eyes; it was either he wore them or he skated about with his eyes closed. He’d trained for that in an empty rink with some small successes, but there were roughly 200 people on the ice and he wasn’t taking the chance of a ban for knocking out a couple of kids because some marshal was a minute away from saying, “ _Well, you don’t look blind. Take them off_.”

 _I’m not blind_. Why on earth did Hastur want to meet him on public ice, anyway? Especially when hockey ice was so much better—and it wasn’t like they didn’t see each other in the locker room or on the benches between sessions and lessons. Obviously, this was something else; this was something decidedly meant to be kept away from any prying ears, or there wouldn’t have been a reason on Hastur insisting quite as much as he had.

It had struck Crowley, who’d been looking forward to finishing his last session of the day and heading out into the persistent rain (he had a new plant to pick up in Watford, and he also wanted to make a stop at a certain bookshop in Soho run by a certain someone who wasn’t returning his calls), that whatever Hastur needed to talk about needed to be kept secret from _The Angels_. That was the only logical reason for coming to a packed public session like this one, he determined, to blend into the background; not that either of them really did.

Hastur had texted him a few minutes before patch was ending, just as Crowley had finished up his lesson with Beelzebub. They’d given him a ‘good’ for his latest program run-through, which amounted to relatively high praise from them, but they’d then gone on to scold him about how his Lutz was starting to look very ‘flutzy’, and how he’d barely landed his quad salchow.

“It won’t give you any positive GOE.” Beelzebub had shaken their head, like they couldn’t believe someone would settle for _good_ or _landed_ , even at Crowley’s thirty years of hard living. “Isn’t this is your _last competitive season in this category_ , Crowley? Do you want to go out with a medal, or like someone who overstayed his welcome for nothing more than a few ‘well dones’ and ‘so inspiring’? Give me a quad sal, triple Lutz and a double axel. Then I’ll let-”

Crowley had skated off without hearing the last part of their biting sentence, the lights in the arena bearing down on him even with his glasses on. He waited, as politely as one simply wanting it done can, for the current skater to finish their program run-through and then took off skating, three-turning into position when he’d managed enough speed. He’d pulled himself into the salchow, his small weight propelling him around, and then immediately after managed the three rotations for a clean Lutz.

He wiped out on the axel.

It was his fault. He tried to turn into a triple.

Beelzebub had skated over to him and asked whether he was injured before ushering him off the ice without a word on his failures. Crowley knew, faintly, he hadn’t gotten away with it and Beelzebub would only want to work harder on it on Monday. Gabriel’s hollow laugh battered his ears as he’d left the ice and retrieved his bag and phone.

He’d paid the weekend prices for public ice five minutes later and that was where he was now, navigating through the abysmal attempts at skating, and avoiding anyone who looked on the verge of falling; figure skaters always got the blame for that sort of thing, and he’d not even brought his hockey skates with him today.

Just having a toepick and a flat end on your blade seemed to immediately bring suspicion on you from the marshals, most of whom were hockey skaters themselves (and that teenager who didn’t like him) and, of course, that was a plain ol’ rivalry if ever there was one; like heaven and hell, were figure and hockey skaters. It was a strange feeling, how one day they’d greet him warmly and let him tear around the ice, and then bark at him for raising his leg a little too high the next week; it wasn’t unusual for marshals to see the skates before the skater (which was one of the reasons he’d begun hating public ice). When he did go on public, they’d stare at him as though he was a double agent, or one half of a twin. Their conversations regarding him were probably interesting.

“Hastur,” Crowley muttered as he saw the rough’n’ready bastard, shaving the ice as he pulled up beside the boards. “What brings us here, huh?” he asked the retired _Hounslow Hell-raisers_ forward, who was leaning back casually against the barrier with his skates crossed and propped dangerously in front of him, inviting someone to trip.

“Heard a rumour,” said Hastur in his breathy, sulky voice; the hockey player always seemed in a bit of a mood, although drunk he was a laughing maniac apparently, but today there was something else in his dark eyes, something almost sad. “I thought you better know – I overheard the Angels talking the other day...”

“The Angels?” Crowley snarled, thinking of Michael’s sultry, almost preppy laughter joining Gabriel’s as he’d left the rink earlier. “And what did you hear those arsehats talking about now? How they talc their arses to clench better in spins?”

Hastur made a face at the description. “No.” He shifted a bit, but didn’t draw his skates under him. “They were talking about... _Avery Fell_.”

Crowley’s heart skipped a beat. _Aziraphale_ , he thoughtfully corrected. He dug his ‘picks into the ice and pulled down one corner of his glasses to settle Hastur’s black expression with a squinty glare. “What were they saying about him?”

Motioning with his arm in a ‘couldn’t be bloody bothered’ way, Hastur responded, “He was here, on Wednesday, when the other rink burst a pipe and they had to hold patch on this sheet.” He gestured about the public ice, and Crowley grimaced at the idea of _jumping_ on this hard shite without a soft grip; even just standing on his figure blades was wobbly. “I got here to teach the boys in the evening class when the Angels walked past me talking about him, and how... he didn’t look... well? I couldn’t catch much of it, but thought maybe it might be of interest to you.”

Crowley’s expression darkened, but his anger had long-since deflated and dispersed now he knew the brunt of it – and the probable reason Aziraphale wasn’t returning his calls. He was likely sitting in the backroom of the shop seeing if he could beat his reading record of three books a day – which also meant he’d probably only stopped for a cocoa before collapsing into bed (if he’d even made it upstairs, that is) the past few nights, to just read more and tune out the world until he passed out. _Shit, shit, shit, shit._

Shoving his glasses back over his eyes, Crowley stuck his hands in his pockets and asked, “Was there anything else?” He never thanked Hastur; his information was cheap, the details were what mattered, and Hastur never got details, or specifics; he was a hoarder of titbits.

“Yeah, actually,” said Hastur, squaring his jaw with a damp frown. “How many more comps you got?”

“Three – _hm_ – four, at most.” Crowley shifted backwards away from the side, as a particularly clumsy-looking skater dragged himself along the barrier. Hastur moved a little, so he could get past, and then immediately resumed his lazy position. “Why?” Crowley asked.

“Just wondering – gonna stick with figure? Thinking of taking pot shots at the adult championships? Maybe change your discipline?”

Crowley gave a wordless nod as he shifted his attention to the rest of the rink, wondering how quickly he could get out of this spiralling conversation; they’d had it once. Beelzebub had had it with him, too. “Can’t have the club get overrun with the angel fraternity,” Crowley said absently, thinking. Aziraphale hadn’t asked about his future plans for their sport, not that he ever asked after the affairs of the rink nowadays.

Crowley chastised himself. It wasn’t _their sport_ anymore anyway.

“True, true,” Hastur murmured, although it was faint praise if ever the man gave any. “Thinking of turning figure coach, then? Or sticking with hockey...?”

“Figure coach? Nah, too much work, and too many arsehole parents.” Crowley cracked his knuckles and turned to Hastur. “So, I actually have to go now.”

Hastur, of course, saw right through him. He raised a messy eyebrow. “Can’t let the club get overrun with the angel fraternity, but willing to see if you can recruit them another, huh?”

Crowley sent Hastur what would have been a seizing glare if not for his glasses; his mouth pulled up in a scowl, and he hoped that was enough. “Aziraphale is never coming back to skating. He said so himself.”

“So, why was he here?” asked Hastur, his own lip quirking in a sly smile, “Why was the once great _Avery Fell_ skating around _public_ , hm?”

 _I dunno_ , thought Crowley, very close to screaming at him, but instead he waved Hastur off and skated to the exit, stepping out to go collect his bag and be on his way. Some would perhaps call the ten minutes he’d spent on public a waste of money, but he’d gotten some information and, though he’d normally shrug off Hastur’s murmurings as falsehoods, there was something in this. The seven quid it cost to skate on bad ice (Crowley usually got coach discounts, but not on the shorter weekend public skates) was well worth it this time.

He changed out of his skates, wiped them down and placed them in his aged backpack before leaving quickly to his Bentley. She sat motionless in the rain, stunning as always. He patted the bonnet in greeting to her before sliding into his seat, dumping his bag in the back. Before leaving the car park he fired off a text to the owner of the plant he was meant to pick up – just a quick ‘the rain has caught me out; I’ll collect Monday’, before he was putting the Bentley into gear, correcting his glasses in the mirror, shoving one of his many _Queen_ CDs into the machine and belting off down the road to Soho listening to the first strains of _It’s a Hard Life_.

###### 

Crowley threw on the brake and practically tripped out of his Bentley on to the wet road. Wiping off the germs and muck of the streets on to his trouser-leggings, he pushed the door closed and retrieved his skates form the back, hitching one strap on to his shoulder as he crossed to the shop and got himself under the slight overhang of the doorway. On the outside, the brickwork was as tidy and neat as ever, although the windows were speckled with dust; long overdue for a good wipe-down—not that Aziraphale wanted to make the shop look inviting. He hated when people even knew it was open.

 _Speaking of being open..._ The lights inside the bookshop were all aglow, bright and intoxicating to the weary, soaked passerby, but the sign plastered to the door’s window with dampness read a quite firm _Closed_.

Crowley tried the door handle anyway but, astoundingly, found the shop really _was_ locked for once. He would never forget the time he drove down one morning to find the door wide open and a couple of stray cats taking up residence. He thinks they got them all out in the end, but he wasn’t entirely sure if one wasn’t still living below the floorboards; at least it was a type of organic pest control.

Crowley dug through his bag for the extra set of keys Aziraphale had ‘gifted’ him two months ago, when the bookkeeper (Crowley laughingly refused to say _-seller_ ) had to leave London for a few days to clear an old cottage of precious books somewhere in Scotland. He’d given the keys to Crowley so he could pop in and check on the cactus, and also make sure the shop was secure (but first priority was the cactus, at least from Crowley’s point of view).

When Aziraphale had gotten back, he’d never asked for the keys, so Crowley had kept them just in case. Well, this was obviously the _just in case_ a subconscious part of Crowley had feared.

Crowley shoved the key in and turned it a few times until he heard a subtle click and could open the door freely, stepping inside and immediately locking back up after him. Crowley wasn’t about to be the reason some of Aziraphale’s prized books went missing. Making his way through the lit-up front, he looked for signs of life – empty mugs, cold cocoa, a wine glass, or (he hoped) a plate. But as far as he could find there was nothing of the sort in the shop and, after checking several hideouts and indents he was aware of, he went back to the door and flipped the lights off.

Plunging the shop into darkness gave him an easy route to the backroom, following the gentle droplets of light filtering through the cracks in the door he’d helped install last month. “Aziraphale?” Crowley called belatedly, but there was no answer, so he threw caution to the wind and went in.

The room was usually a bit of a mess, but looked decidedly more than usual. He checked the various hiding places in the backroom before turning out that light too, and knocking about blindly for the false wall. Once, three or so years ago, he’d visited Aziraphale’s private rooms upstairs because of what could probably be called a similar incident if Hastur was telling the truth—although it had been a little different.

Crowley himself had spotted Aziraphale at the rink, practicing quietly in a corner on public. Aziraphale had seen him in the same second and fled without so much as a ‘hello’, despite having seen one another the night before. Two hours later, Crowley had received a call from a pissed-off barman about his ‘friend’ who was requesting a pick-up—and he’d said, apparently, that the emergency contact in his wallet was the only one he’d have do it. So, the barman had given him a quick and easy decision: either Crowley came along and picked up his ‘friend’, or the police were getting involved. So Crowley, having only just settled on his throne for the evening to watch the stupidity on British television, was pulled outside into the velvet heat of the August evenings to drive Aziraphale home.

He hadn’t minded much. Thankfully, the man had been sober enough to walk. They’d gotten into the bookshop, Aziraphale had given him direction, and Crowley had taken him upstairs to the apartment to put him to bed with a couple of headache pills and a bottle of water.

He’d watered the portly cactus on the way out, which had at the time been in Aziraphale’s upstairs, but was brought down to the shop and placed on the corner of the book-sprawled desk so the occasionally forgetful bookkeeper would remember to water it whenever he actually cleaned the desk of books—which was about fortnightly, so about the right time.

But now, as he walked into the upstairs, Crowley noticed the potted plant had taken its place back in the apartment and there, curled up on the sofa with a pout on his plump lips, was Aziraphale with a pile of books beside him, his reading glasses falling askew off his face, and an empty bottle of wine on the table, with another half-full beside it. When Crowley got nearer, he noticed Aziraphale had luckily managed to put the wine glass down nicely on the table before falling asleep. So that was something.

 _No stains on the carpet_ , Crowley thought as he noticed the bottle was one of the man’s vintage reds, saved for special occasions and wallowing, and special wallowing. After fetching a clean flute from the kitchenette, Crowley took off his jacket and laid it casually over the other before taking a seat on the sofa opposite to pour himself a drink from the bitter—no, _fruity_ red. He wasn’t expected at the rink tomorrow – it was a Sunday after all, when the club had the ice and hockey was a four letter word.

Crowley had once been a devotee of the Sunday club’s overpriced ice sessions, but not for a few years now. Not since the last incident.

Taking a long gulp of wine, Crowley picked up the book from the top of the stack and delved into the bleak world of Dickinson. It took him about three minutes to notice the wet, sodden rug beneath his feet which he resolved to deal with later, when he knew why exactly it was wet. For now, he pulled his long limbs on to the sofa and kicked off his shoes on to a piece of floor somewhere to the left.

As he opened the book, Aziraphale stirred under his coat and Crowley immediately looked up, worried he’d been too loud and woken him; he needed the sleep, no matter how alcohol-induced it was, and Crowley was perfectly content to wait for him, for as long as he needed to – as long as it took. “Shush,” he muttered into the groaning silence as he shut the book and stood up in one fluid movement. He walked as quietly as possible over to sit beside Aziraphale’s outstretched form, raising a hand to place on his shoulder as the drab colours of the day gave way to that rainy sunlight which brought with it gentle, familiar warmth across them; that homeliness present in every place Aziraphale called his.

Crowley’s heart bled for it, wanted it; he sought it, again and again, no matter the ensuring pain that came with knowing the bookseller’s own heart was built from broken spines, bent pages and inkblots. “You’re safe, Angel, go back to sleep,” he whispered, settling against him. He opened _Bleak House_ , turning the page to find Aziraphale’s soft handwriting in the margins. Crowley placed two fingers over the words; though they were scribbles and nothing important but to highlight a passage, the penmarks were clean and tidy, with something not quite complete about them. They were a sentence Aziraphale hadn’t ended, that he would return to, and if that, in Crowley’s mind, didn’t sum up the man lying on the sofa bearing the weight of his thirty-something years, he hadn’t found a better description.

Aziraphale’s hazed-over eyes flicked open and up before they shut again in the light and downpour of the afternoon. He snuggled beneath the sound weight of Crowley’s jacket, nudging his head into the collar and inhaling before Crowley watched him drift, finally, into a peaceful slumber. “Sleep well, Angel,” he said, the even breaths soothing and weightless. “I’ll be here when you wake up. You’ll be safe.” Crowley swept a hand over his eyes, shaking his head at himself when he realised they’d gathered fragile tears. “I promise.”

No one had kept that promise to Aziraphale but him, which he knew from their tied-together lives, their midnight calls, their embraces in dark hospitals and on wet pavements. Crowley bent down to press his lips to Aziraphale’s forehead, lingering there but not kissing; leaving no trace but the memory. _You’ll be OK. I promise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aiming to have the next chapter up Monday or Tuesday!  
> Want to feel? I wrote the last few paragraphs (from _For now, he pulled his long limbs on to the sofa and kicked off his shoes on to a piece of floor somewhere to the left_ ) while listening to a cover of Taylor Swift's Safe and Sound by Sam Tsui.  
> Fun facts of Figure:  
> 1\. Why do ice marshals hate sunglasses? Where are those policies? I have absolutely no clue.  
> 2\. the sash Crowley mentions is a real thing. They're normally either bright green or purple in my experience and when you first wear one they're absolutely awful, but then you take off your glasses to run a program and everything - including tiny children! - is a blur, so they are a godsend to coaches and skaters alike because having to contend with distorted vision is enough of an issue without having to worry about avoiding other skaters (even if your music's playing...) who think you can probably just adjust your program slightly. Usually, the Head Coach will also issue a quick warning, too.


	3. Bleak House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's you."
> 
> "It's me."
> 
> "Crowley, dear... how did you get in?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the tags in regards to implied eating disorder and fat shaming. Stay safe.

It was maybe two and a half hours before Aziraphale woke up; by that time Crowley had reached mid-point in _Bleak House_ and was considering the window’s optimal throwing height as a means of never having to read another page.

“Mornin’,” Crowley said into the chill of the early evening, the light outside not quite dark enough to warrant turning on anything but the heating. “Sleep well?” He took a couple sips from his third glass of red and raised an eyebrow, moving from his warm seat against Aziraphale’s side to the sofa opposite. He’d misplaced his glasses as the day got gradually darker and the book got closer, but reached for them now, to better see the other man, and smiled as he watched Aziraphale flounder under his jacket.

“My head,” Aziraphale responded, wiping his sunken eyes before pinching the bridge of his nose. He clenched and unclenched his hands in the jacket, fisting the black material as he finally took note of the man in his sitting room and remarked a tired, “It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Crowley replied on the beat, closing _Bleak House_ without glancing at the page number. Though he was tempted to chuck it across the room, he half-thought Aziraphale would report him for murder.

There was a regrettable silence when Crowley realised his response – and why he was there – probably warranted more than he’d given. Aziraphale had a hand to his head, nursing the inevitable headache from overindulgence, and was staring at him in a way too familiar of Crowley’s own subdued depression. He tried to ignore the little voice in the back of his head as it began in a repeated mutter _it’s starting again-it’s starting again-it’s starting again._

“It’s you,” Aziraphale repeated, this time in a softer voice, the deep red of his face easing from sleep. He sat up with a wince and touched his mouth, tasting the remnants of a day badly spent. “Crowley, dear... How did you get in?”

“I have my own keys, remember?” Crowley replied. He’d wondered over the past few months if the other man was quite as forget and clueless as he portrayed when it came to the matters of his shop and its pricy collection; Aziraphale had often _tsk_ ’ed at the company Crowley used to keep, though he’d been weeding them out lately after a couple of bad experiences—and he’d never invited them into the depths of the shop: for one thing, they wouldn’t have understood the homely attraction, and for another he knew it pained Aziraphale even to have to welcome _customers_ into the shop.

Back to the moment, Aziraphale blinked unfocused eyes at him and gave a soft, “Ah, that’ll do it, dear fellow.” His tongue ran around his mouth, chasing the last traces of wine with a grimace. “D’you want a cuppa tea?”

Crowley’s heart clenched. Aziraphale’s hangovers weren’t usually so bad his voice remained slurred in the aftermath _—How much did he drink? What a stupid ang—_

He caught himself and plastered an easy smile over his face. “Have you got coffee?”

“I- I don’t have a kettle,” Aziraphale responded, his voice taking on massive grief like it was the end of the world; stray tears suddenly littering his eyes and making them sparkle in the low light. A Brit without a kettle – could they even be called a Brit?

The softened raindrops outside had finally come to a stop and Crowley felt the persistent ache in his legs to move. He uncurled himself from his hastily-taken position on the sofa and stood up, minding the damp rug, to collect his shoes. “Well, then let’s go and buy one, huh?”

Aziraphale stared at him dumbly, raising an eyebrow. “Where do you suppose we’ll find a kettle at this hour?”

“It’s London. There’s gotta be some store around here _somewhere_ selling them—I mean, Hell, it’s Soho; you can probably get one shaped like a dick.” Crowley shot him a smirk and watched the shadow of a blush colour Aziraphale’s cheeks at the risqué humour. Using his balance, Crowley hiked a foot up to drag on one shoe and then did the same with the other, listening to the fumbling shuffle of Aziraphale standing from the sofa, culminating in the springs’ whine as they jolted back into place from being slept on.

The asking silence enveloping the room held as Aziraphale cracked his back and grabbed up their wine flutes. Crowley went to follow him, but the other man swept himself out of the kitchen just as quickly. Standing face-to-face, too close, Aziraphale broke into a nervous chuckle and patted Crowley’s forearm fondly, his hold lingering a moment too long. “My dear,” he said, pressing past. “I see that look. I assure you, I’m not that breakable.”

“Aziraphale,” said Crowley, turning on the ball of his foot to watch as the aforementioned wandered about turning on a few lamps, leaving gasps of lighting around the humble sitting room. Aziraphale revisited the small table, picking up his stack of books to return them to the shelf along the side wall, where one line had been practically emptied besides from _House of Leaves_ and _War and Peace._

“Aziraphale,” Crowley tried again, and this time received a quiet acknowledgement for his troubles. “Would you mind telling me what happened?”

“Happened? Wh-why would something have had to-to-to happen?” Aziraphale threw an all-too-telling look over his shoulder as he arranged the books by author’s surname, casually slotting _Bleak House_ in with the cover facing out into the room. He thumbed the pages of a tattered _Paradise Lost_ before carefully putting it to one side. “Business has been so slow lately, I just thought I’d close until the, uh, the rains stopped, and-and get some reading in.”

If there was one good thing about Aziraphale, from Crowley’s perspective, it was he’d never been good at lying. This had made for some interesting experiences, and a couple of daunting conversations, but, though he wasn’t one for thinking on their pasts often, it had been a saviour a couple of times. It wasn’t that Aziraphale had to lie, or liked lying, or even lied regularly; it was that when he lied, it was to do with some silly notion of keeping himself safe.

Aziraphale’s lies to ‘keep himself safe’ usually meant Aziraphale was in actuality putting himself in danger, from Crowley’s several years of experience in the matter.

Today’s blundering didn’t seem as serious as other times, and Crowley wordlessly thanked some higher authority, but that comfort was in itself a slippery slope he’d tripped down a few times too many. “Aziraphale.” He watched the other man straighten up, his inward posture sharpening. “I know you were at the rink the other day. Hastur told me.”

“Oh...” Aziraphale pressed a book to his chest and they swapped side-glances.

“He said he heard The Angels chatting about you.”

“Ah, well, that—that would.” Aziraphale clicked his tongue. “Yes.”

Crowley furrowed his brow. “Yes?” He collected his scrunched-up jacket from the sofa and pulled it around his shoulders, letting the motion run through his fidgeting limbs; the phantom warmth from Aziraphale was still present, the faintest smell of . “You were at the rink? How come you didn’t just tex—call me? Wednesday, right? I could have gotten off work early.”

“Oh, what? No.” Aziraphale shook his head, turning back to the bookshelf. He propped a couple more books on their side awkwardly, but had given up organising them for the moment at least. “I—it was a very spur of the moment thing, Crowley. Bad weather, uh, no manuscripts to correct—no ongoing papers and such. Yes. Jus-just a spur of the moment skate, really.”

“Spur of the moment? You don’t _do_ spur of the moment.” Crowley raised his glasses and squinted at Aziraphale in the blurriness of his vision. He didn’t even react; Aziraphale never reacted, which was both a blessing and a curse in Crowley’s opinion. A blessing, because they’d been friends since practically the beginning of their lives, and Crowley knew he could disregard his glasses at a moment’s notice to relax his eyes – even though he rarely did in public places – because he knew Aziraphale was there to lead him, guide him, to help him navigate the able world around them.

A curse, because they’d been friends since practically the beginning of their lives, and Aziraphale did not look in his eyes and squirm. Though Crowley’s sight was limited as soon as the glasses were off, he’d often thought Aziraphale – already so soft, but much softer in the blur – seemed to smile that much brighter at him when he removed the patched shades. This was a curse because it did things to Crowley—things it shouldn’t do, things like made him feel safe (he was meant to keep Aziraphale safe), things like saunter into love.

“Really,” said Crowley when it was clear Aziraphale wasn’t going to reply, disbelief visibly colouring his voice. “C’mon, Angel; how long’ve we been friends?” He didn’t register the endearment until after he said it. He remained standing where he was, looking at him, as an uncomfortable silence settled over them. Crowley broke it himself with a quick chuckle and, “Nearly thirty years!”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, quiet refusal in his tone, as he walked slowly towards him.

Crowley held his breath and looked away this time, his mistake ending any hope he might have had during this conversation, until he realised the other man was waiting – some might say _tensely_ – for a reply. “Aziraphale.” The name sat heavy in his mouth, like ash on his tongue.

He felt the pressure of, more than saw the hand on his arm, but didn’t turn to look in the blues – so full of the ocean, ever brimming with water; a life led in reverse. “Please, don’t call me angel.” The touch moved away from Crowley, but it still festered beneath his skin, the pressure of it lingering long on his jacket. “I’m not an angel.”

“You’re more of an angel than those _arsehats_ ,” Crowley bit out, scuffing his shoe on the floor as he shoved his hands into his small pockets like a disgruntled teen; he could mimic the look well with how much he worked with ‘em enough these days. His ears burnt at the little gasp Aziraphale made, but he didn’t let that dampen his condemning. “Bloody _Gabriel_ an—and _Michael,_ and the rest of ‘em! They basically threw you under the bus, Aziraphale!”

“They did no such thing, Crowley.” Aziraphale hardened his voice with a distasteful amount of venom to his educated accent, raising his chin. “What happened in Japan,” he bit out, the memories still fresh, still leaving him in trembles. “Was my fault.”

Crowley dropped his glasses back over his eyes and bore down on Aziraphale, but the other man barely flinched – because of course he wouldn’t; neither would Crowley beneath Aziraphale’s most blazing of a glare. They needled each other in different ways. “ _None_ of what happened that day was _your fault_ ,” Crowley hissed, finding his hands were shaking as he entered Forbidden Conversation Territory. “You were _ill_ —and Sandalphon is still skating! He changed to the adult leagues three seasons ago!”

“I-I’m still skating, Crowley! I, just, I-”

“Oh, I’m sorry? You are? So, skating now is hopping on public for a quick spin? And then leaving when those arsehat angels turn up an-and—what the Hell did they even say to get you so upset?” Crowley reached for something – something he couldn’t quite render. His shoulders collapsed under the weight of everything, letting out a drained sigh as sadness flit into his voice and he said, “I thought everything was better?”

Aziraphale hummed beneath the black glare of Crowley’s glasses, though his own lip wobbled and his eyes filled with giant teardrops ready to spill. “Crowley, my dear, they... they didn’t say anything—at least-” he broke off in a sigh, raising a hand to run shortly through his hair, combing it with his fingers. “Never mind. They were justified, you know—it’s my own fault for thinking I was – that I could...” Aziraphale laid a hand over his stomach and gave it one solid pat, before turning away as a hot blush climbed over his plushy-soft cheeks. He rested the heel of his hand against his head.

Crowley’s heart skipped a beat – _that can’t be healthy, that it keeps doing that_ – and made to grab the other by his coat sleeve—all wrinkled from sleeping in it, _bless_ —and tried to turn him, stopping abruptly when Aziraphale’s body convulsed in a full-on shiver. He let go, walking on to the squidgy rug to stand in front of him. “They _didn’t_.”

Shame coloured Aziraphale’s skin a deep red. “... They did.”

“... I’m gonna fucking kill ‘em.”

“Oh, Crowley, please – you mustn’t react like this. It’s true – Gabriel’s right; I-I do need to lose a little weight.” Aziraphale clasped his hands together in something of a prayer to the lankier man, who looked on with disdain for the aforementioned Gabriel. Trying hard to change the topic, Aziraphale said, “Besides, you coach hockey now.” He made a face.

Crowley didn’t let him get away with it. “Aziraphale.” He laid his hands on the other’s shoulders, squeezed them, could feel the agile muscle beneath the cushioned layer which, as kids, had always made Aziraphale’s hugs extra safe and extra nice; it still did, in Crowley’s expert opinion. “What Gabriel implied is _not OK_. I mean – fuck! How did he think he could get away with that shit? You don’t tell – well, you don’t tell _anyone_ – but you especially don’t tell a figure skater they’re _fat_.”

“He didn’t,” Aziraphale rebuked, holding firm to his values even as he began to shake.

“In not so many words, Angel? Yes, yes he did.” Crowley let out a long, troubled breath and shook his head, clenching and unclenching his hands on Aziraphale, but keeping the contact; keeping their distance to a minimum. A few moments of heavy silence followed the truth, as Aziraphale hung his head forward and bit his lip—Crowley hated that expression, hated how it wrung out his features and made him look so much older than his time. “Hey,” said Crowley, removing his glasses with one hand before ducking his head low and level, not dissimilar to a snake’s movement, and used the same hand to tip Aziraphale’s face up. “I’m here for you, Angel.”

A smile pulled at Aziraphale’s tense lips and his eyes, although tired, sparked to life. “My dear, as I’ve said... I’m not as breakable as I’m made out to be.” He raised a hand to clasp Crowley’s wrist, giving it a gentle squeeze in return. “Now—I do believe you’ve begun coaching hockey recently!”

Crowley allowed the change of topic only because everything that would be said, had been; at least to a point. He let his tensed arms drop and dragged his hands off Aziraphale’s coat, smoothing a wrinkle in the shoulder as he did. “I still do figure,” he replied, gesturing vaguely towards his stuffed backpack by the stairwell. He took the seconds Aziraphale was distracted to slip his sunglasses back on. “Still landing quads, too—just doing my last big competitive season, then I’m moving over to-”

“You aren’t just going to do _hockey,_ surely?” Aziraphale spun around, the interruption a little wild for his character. A shine of something in his eye hardened.

Slouching in his hips, Crowley let his lips curve slightly into a smile. “No. I’m moving to the adult figure leagues.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and added, “Shoulda done it years back; guess I’m just the type of hang on to the past.”

Aziraphale’s cheeks pinked. He let out a loose jumble of a sigh, something close to a groan but not quite reaching the back of his throat, surging forwards to take the other’s sleeve. “Crowley...”

Crowley ignored the waver in the other’s voice, raising a hand to curl over Aziraphale’s hand—removing it. Despite himself, everything he knew he should be saying, he couldn’t stop the quiet hurt from inflicting upon his soul a worthwhile deal of trouble. So, he said, “C’mon. Let’s go buy you that kettle before you start getting withdrawal.”

He didn’t look at him, but Crowley saw Aziraphale wipe his eyes once before giving a decidedly confident nod. “Yes, please. And after, we’ll have dinner at the Ritz – my treat, for your troubles and—and for you having to have seen me like this.”

_Again_ , Crowley silently added to his own benefit. “I’ve seen you worse, Aziraphale.” Crowley avoided the pet name nipping the front of his tongue, swallowing it down. “But first, you’ve gotta be straight-”

“Little hope of that, my dear.”

“-with me,” Crowley finished, lip quirking at the deadpan in Aziraphale’s interruption. “Why the hell is the carpet wet? _Please_ tell me you didn’t _piss yourself_.”

“No, no!” Aziraphale fluttered his hands about. “I smashed a vase this—the other morning... And then I put it out to dry and, oh, Crowley, you’ll hate me – I left the rug hanging out the window until two this afternoon!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

###### 

Crowley ordered dessert for Aziraphale after they’d finished their main course and, on second thought, a coffee for himself to wind down; it had always had a somewhat different effect on him, causing him to go sleepy and relaxed and, frankly, that was exactly what he wanted in that second.

Aziraphale’s new kettle was safely tucked between their feet beneath the table. It was not phallic shaped; although they’d found one, Aziraphale had put his foot down and instead they’d bought a clean white one in the usual shape.

Overall, their meal out had so far been as delightful as any other time – except for one thing: their usual waiter was currently holidaying in the Bahamas and so they’d had a new server, who’d at once mistaken the basis of their relationship. “Ah, good evening, sirs!” he’d said as he delivered their menus; a slip of a lad, probably arty, never likely to have stepped on an ice rink in his life. “So, who’s taking who out tonight, sirs? A special anniversary, is it?” He looked between them.

“No, no!” Aziraphale had immediately thrown up his hands. “We’re not—there’s nothing—my kettle and—so—Crowley, dear, help me.” It wasn’t until the pet name had slipped that his blush deepened to a red blotchiness over his face, pushing away the urge to put his head into his hands.

Crowley had smiled at the waiter – he’d kept his glasses on in the glare of the restaurant – and told him their usual orders, asked for two waters with a wedge of lemon each and they’d soon begun dining—their waiter popped up every now and again to tempt them with alcohol, still pressing on their relationship. It got more than a little boring after a while, even though seeing Aziraphale a blushing mess was maddening. Crowley whipped out his phone after he’d mouthed the last dribble of sauce off his spoon and made a quick note to talk to someone about the lad; they were regulars after all, and this sort of treatment wasn’t exactly a pleasant way to eat out.

When Crowley ordered the dessert, as was happening now, and he asked for the aforementioned coffee, the lad downed his mouth to Crowley’s ear and said, “Just give me a discreet wave if you’re gonna pop the question, sir, and I’ll have the kitchen prepare a cheese platter free of charge!”

Crowley waved him off. In the ensuing wait for their afters, he and Aziraphale chatted quietly about nothing much; a few sentences on politics, a paragraph on work, an article’s worth of words on a distinctive dress an older woman came in wearing; it was red, and pink, and mixed with a clashing yellow bow. Neither of them had seen such a, uh, _creation_ before, and they’d seen a lot of quite... creative dress choices in the skating world.

“Gotten weirder lately, Angel – and more offensive,” Crowley said offhandedly, too late to take back the endearment. “You thought _Katarina Witt_ ’s blue dress was in bad taste?” He pulled out his phone and wrote up a quick search, clicking on the first result. “Try the latest with _Shulpov_.”

Aziraphale squinted and took the phone with his left hand, drawing back with a gasp when he realised what the Russian was wearing. He placed the fingers of his right hand to his mouth and turned the phone’s picture to the table, sliding it back. “Oh, my...”

The lad returned with Aziraphale’s dessert and Crowley’s coffee, before he toddled off with a wink in Crowley’s direction. Crowley played along, soon to have words with the manager, by raising his cup but giving a subtle shake of the head. Aziraphale blinked at him, throwing a glance over his shoulder as he finished chewing his first bite. He waved his fork broadly in front of Crowley’s glasses, dabbing his lips with a napkin as he leant forward in a gentle prompt, “Does he still think we’re a couple?”

“Most of the people in here are, so it’s hardly surprising.” Crowley nodded vaguely in the direction of the other tables. He picked up his coffee and took a nice drink to warm his throat, slipping his hands around to grasp the mug. He added, “Not only does he think we’re a couple, Aziraphale, he thinks we’re a _rich_ couple.”

Aziraphale muttered something around his fork, sucking the remnants of fluffy cake off. He used his napkin on his lips again before sliding his finger absently through the cherry sauce on the plate, looking up and around at the other patrons.

The atmosphere around them had, all evening, been charged with their banter, teasing and friendly conversation. But now, in a few seconds of end-of-meal silence, it dampened. Crowley shrugged back into his chair and blinked at him behind his glasses, pulling down on edge of his shades to give the other man a concerned look. “Something wrong, An- Aziraphale?” He managed it this time, to keep the familiar endearment off his lips. Why had it gotten so hard today? Crowley pulled his lips into a side pout.

Aziraphale didn’t speak for a time, staring at his plate – until, “How is the rink?”

Crowley’s eyes bugged, pushing his glasses back on properly. Aziraphale hadn’t directly asked him about the matters of their ice rink in years, and after their little set-to tonight he thought he’d never hear the word said—at least in this millennia. “It’s... good, I suppose?”

“Do you like teaching?” Aziraphale still didn’t look up.

“I guess.” Crowley repositioned himself on the chair, making his ankle a tripping hazard in the process. He put his coffee down, and a smile perked his lip. He began, “I got these new kids – four of ‘em, calling ‘em The Them, to save the hassle of learning names – and they’re _great_. I mean, the girl is _amazing_ , think she’s Pepper or Salt—maybe one of the boys—nah, that’s Brian—anyway! These kids, they’re _crazy good_! They’re like we were, back when we fell out of axels and doubles and just got straight back up.” Crowley eyed the gentry of London; somewhere around them, someone had given their kid a tablet and it was whistling out some stupid song to clash with the piano. “I mean, they’re hockey kids so they collide-”

_Shit._

_Ohshitohshitohshitohshit._

Crowley’s mouth was still slightly parted and his arms flung out, as he’d been about to say _so they collide and get up like it’s no big deal_ , but he couldn’t say that to Aziraphale. He did not need to hear those words said with honest and shrugged abandon, did not need to think it was no big deal—because colliding was _a very big fucking deal._

_Especially to Aziraphale._

Aziraphale looked up then and stared pleasantly, like he’d done all evening, but the walls had been thrown up, and all of a sudden Crowley wanted nothing more than to pay the bill, blow off the tip and go ‘round the block to the nearest, shittest pub chain in Britain and get plastered.

“Yes, Crowley?” said Aziraphale, his voice just verging on the corner of being upset, but not there yet. He’d raised a hand to touch his hair, to run down the back of his head, to touch his—

Crowley knew that movement; he’d seen it countless times when they’d been together, when some inconsiderate little shit said something, when a kid looked at him a little too pointedly—but the adults were the worst. They wanted to _seem_ like they weren’t looking, like they hadn’t noticed the scaring, like they were above staring but all the same they felt they were entitled enough, should be able to ask, be _allowed_ to know what happened in corrupting detail.

He still remembered one insistence when the pushing got too far – a quite exclusive party somewhere in London’s Mayfair, not far from Crowley’s flat, which Aziraphale had gotten an invite to thanks to supplying the rich arse with several difficult to find books. Crowley had gone as plus-one, even worn a suit, and maybe he’d been the reason it was worse but, frankly, he was happy he’d been there, happy he could take Aziraphale away immediately to get drunk in his flat—and was so glad he could grab that fucker by the tie, down his glasses, stare with all the broken cells of his eyes and say, “ _You wanna know what fucking happened? You have a phone? Search up Avery Fell, NHK Trophy and you can watch it happen!_ ”

Aziraphale politely asked him, the next day, never to do it again.

Crowley would do it again in a heartbeat.

He hated that video, had hated not being told it existed, hated that some arsehole cameraman had stood there and recorded it. Most of all, Crowley hated that he’d _searched for it_ , one night, sitting in that damned hospital room, while Aziraphale was there in that damned bed unmoving, breathing faintly, and they were waiting—waiting for results on twenty-odd tests and he’d had to re-watch it, re-watch the footage at least ten times until he could make it through without pausing, without his eyes being so smeared with tears he couldn’t fucking see his phone.

Sometimes, he hated himself for ever watching it. It had been violating, repulsive, and he’d known Aziraphale would never have wanted him to see it—but he had. He couldn’t get it out of his head—he didn’t want to get it out of his head.

Everyone should see it, was his private thoughts on the matter, which he’d never shared with Aziraphale. Crowley, in the moment, closed his eyes and swallowed. _Everyone should witness the fall of an angel. Everyone should see the brutality of our sport._

“Uh... They... they get up,” Crowley said instead, opening his eyes and finding his voice had grown hoarse with emotion. “Like—like we used to, when we were kids and falls didn’t... didn’t hurt – the same.”

“Have you fallen recently?” asked Aziraphale, downing his hand, as he swept his finger through the cherry sauce a second time and set the tip on his lip, using his tongue to gently savour the taste before he sucked the digit into his mouth, pulling it out with a wet _pop_ to wipe on his napkin.

Crowley tried to ignore the warm feeling in his stomach, where some alcohol was still present from the quiet at Aziraphale’s place earlier. He cleared his throat after another few moments and said, “Just this afternoon, actually. Beelzebub had me doing a combination, and I tried to turn a double into a triple right at the end. I crashed out.” Crowley stared into his coffee cup, bringing it to his lips to take a long slurp.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Aziraphale replied, reaching, but pausing to drop his hand on to the table instead. “What jump?”

Crowley took decisive action and placed his palm on top. “Axel,” he responded with a play-on wince, though the memory did make him shake.

“Ouch.” Aziraphale grimaced; of course he would remember the pain of the forward-facing jumps, that moment of uncertainly of whether you’ll get into the air and land, or slam facedown onto the ice. “I... didn’t realise you could still jump a triple axel?”

Crowley shrugged. “I can still quad at my peak—but I guess I forgot I’m not that young anymore...” He took another gulp of his coffee and set the cup down empty, looking over his glasses at the near-clean plate. “Are you, uh, are you done? Or, d’you want me to fake purpose to you so we can get a cheese platter?”

“What? Oh, _Heavens_ , no!” Aziraphale’s eyes grew wide and he quickly called their overexcited waiter and asked for the bill, which he paid immediately. Crowley got the tip, as he often liked to, shoving on a couple rumpled twenties from his pocket.

The waiter looked about as crestfallen as he could be, as another serve arrived to clear the table. “Next time, sir,” the lad muttered, more to himself than to Crowley, as he took the black plastic plate with the paid bill. “Enjoy your evening, sirs.”

Crowley walked around the table and leant close to Aziraphale, helping shift the man into his coat one sleeve at a time. “D’you think he’s like that with all the rich fobs, or just the gays?”

“ _Crowley!_ ”

###### 

Crowley swept his hand down his Bentley as he neared the driver’s side, soothing the fragile ache in his heart as he brushed his fingers across the chill metal of the roof. “Booksho _p_?” he asked Aziraphale, popping the ‘p’ in an attempt to keep the sad notes from his voice; the hint of his accent sat there instead. The evening, while eventful, had been... _nice_. Discussing the rink with Aziraphale, and skating in general, felt unreal. The feelings brooding in him were familiar, keeping pace with the steady beat of his heart, and he-

He wanted more of it.

Crowley hadn’t realised he’d caught Aziraphale off-guard until the other man sputtered a reply, “Uh—oh, uh – yes? Bookshop? Yes—yes, please, dear.” Aziraphale opened his door and slid into the seat, buckling up. “The bookshop. Yes.”

“You all right?” asked Crowley, as he plopped himself into the driver’s side and started the engine before clicking his own seatbelt into place with a couple of half-hearted tugs.

“I...” Aziraphale sighed and leant back against the Bentley, looking out on to the streets of London as Crowley pulled into traffic. “I’m fine. I’m feeling jolly good, actually. Dinner was- dinner was wonderful.”

Crowley tossed him a long look when they reached the lights. “You look sad,” he remarked for honesty’s sake, and Aziraphale let out one of his soft chuckles—the noise always filled Crowley’s heart, vibrated off his ribs and into the depths of his lungs. He took in a short breath and wrinkled his nose at the faintest smell of cigarette smoke somewhere outside the car, doing up his window quickly to avoid it sticking in his throat. “Hey, Aziraphale?”

“Yes, Crowley?”

“I was wondering...” There were so many things he could say. There were so many ways to phrase so many things: do you want to have dinner tomorrow? Do you want to go on a walk through the park? Do you want to come back to mine? Do you want me to stay at the shop with you? Do you want to get married tomorrow in the town hall because we’re both of a certain age now and neither of us are cut out for dating and really it’s always been us, hasn’t it?

Crowley didn’t say any of those things. Instead, to round out an evening where they’d spoken so much about so much they hadn’t spoken about in years, he decided to broach the same subject again – and be bold. “Do you want to come skating with me? For old time’s sake.” Once the words were out, he expected the car to go chilly; he expected Aziraphale to stutter and mutter and turn him down and step out of his car and his life in the frame of two minutes. They’d bitch at each other right there as the lights turned green and all of London’s pulsing anger, always one step away from unleashing, would come down on them in car horns and yells and fists and knives. They’d keep bitching at cars overtook them, as Crowley inched along and tried to convince Aziraphale to get back into the car because good Hell he’d be mugged looking like that.

But that didn’t happen.

“You know, Crowley,” said Aziraphale, hands resting keenly on his belly. “I... I think that would be delightful. Yes. It would be rather lovely to go to the rink with you.”  
“Great,” said Crowley, because he hadn’t expected that, because he didn’t have a reply for that, because he wasn’t sure if his voice would even work as he stared open-mouthed at his angel—at Aziraphale, sitting in his car, all prim and proper, all past and present, smiling.

Crowley drove as nicely as he could to the bookshop. When they arrived, he got out and leant over the roof, watching Aziraphale bundle himself out of the Bentley with a pleasantness about his relaxed face. “So, how’s your Tuesday?”

“Well, I could keep the shop closed,” said Aziraphale in response, which earned a laugh from Crowley this time. “Yes, dear, Tuesday sounds wonderful—oh, but I will see you before then, surely? You must remember to drop in from time to time; I do so miss you when the days are boring, dear.”

Crowley’s heart flipped. Did Aziraphale even know how those words affected him? Did he know his eyes shifted to Crowley’s face, then away, and to his face again with a small smile which promised things? Which said so much more than the long kisses all those summer-spent couples shared in the parks?

Did Aziraphale know he was so loved, for all his faults – which he had a few; Crowley was not one to dismiss imperfections of character – and for all his past, and for everything sensed but never spoken?

Crowley let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding in, as Aziraphale had crossed the road to the shop and was quickly unlocking it. Watching as the door opened, Crowley’s heart thudded and he raised his voice, “Aziraphale!”

Aziraphale turned, bemusement colouring his features. “Yes? What is it?”

Crowley closed his door, locked it with a flick of his keys and slinked across the road. “We never dealt with the carpet.” It wasn’t what he wanted to say, but another moment with Aziraphale – even dealing with a sodden carpet – was enough for now, for a new start, for another chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Figure Facts:  
> 1\. Katarina Witt's blue dress (which was, frankly, a 'creative' choice) caused a helluva controversy for how short it was. Modesty is still a large issue in figure skating today, and it's only been a few years since women were allowed to compete in catsuits instead of skirts.  
> 2\. Anton Shulpov performed a _Schindler's List_ program in the most recent season (from the NHK Trophy here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnfHoUvPZ7I ), wearing a costume with less than tasteful imagery relating to the Holocaust/Auschwitz. It caused a huge uproar in the figure community about whether this sort of program is even appropriate for a competition. _Schindler's List_ is considered a 'warhorse' of program music, and it commonly used by skaters from all nationalities - sometimes this is well received (as with Jason Brown) and sometimes incredibly badly (as with Shulpov).


	4. What's in a Name?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **AVERY FELL ENDS CAREER AT NHK TROPHY (warning: blood and gore) +interview with his coach and recovery statement**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, finally. Had to split this chapter into two _again_. Hopefully the next'll be out Sunday.
> 
> Warning for a PTSD-like episode in the first part of the chapter. It pretty much starts from the bolded text and finishes with the reporter's remark. It's not very graphic, but if you are easily triggered I want to make sure you're going into this prepared and you can just skim the text instead--it is quite important to the overall plot.  
> There are also instances of self-hate in this chapter, mostly from Aziraphale. Stay safe.

Aziraphale stared at the floor of the ice arena’s reception, counting the diamonds in the pattern around him, as Crowley chatted animatedly to the young women working behind the high counter. They were the same ones from the other Wednesday, and they’d greeted him kindly with a nod when he’d arrived—but practically came alive when Crowley sauntered in the door. He’d been beaming, and Aziraphale had felt his heart lurch at the sight, strengthening his grip on the satchel housing his roughed-up skates.

“Hello!” Crowley called to the girls, and then turned his covered eyes on Aziraphale. He seemed to pause a second, taking him in, before exhaling a warm, “Hey, Angel – ready to skate?”

“Oh, are you _together?_ ” one of the receptionists had immediately interjected.

“Together?” Crowley had responded, clearly catching her tone. His smile turned pleasant and he went to lean on to the counter, which was where he was now, and he lolled his head toward her. “Well, Janet, there is a reason I’ve had to turn down your coffee offers.” He sighed dramatically, and obviously, despite Aziraphale coming out in a harsh blush, this was well-rehearsed banter between them, an inside joke.

‘Janet’ placed a hand to her chest and shook her head, “Oh, Mr Crowley – you _do_ know how to charm a heart.” She sat up primly after sharing an exchange of laughter with her colleagues and Crowley, turning to her computer. “Now, patch or public?” Her eyes slid across the room to Aziraphale.

“Public, Janet. He has skates,” Crowley said. He turned slightly and made a gesture, which Aziraphale took to mean _come here_. Slowly, varying his attention between the floor and Crowley, Aziraphale took the three or so steps up to stand at his side; unlike him, though, Aziraphale kept his posture well and did not slouch on to the receptionist's counter. With a reassuring nod on Crowley’s choice, Aziraphale brought out his wallet.

“Aziraphale, please – it’s my treat. I’ll pay,” said Crowley, patting his hand away. He took his wallet out, slipping a _British Ice Skating_ membership card from one pocket to slide over a screen Janet offered up, before he handed over a ten pound note.

Just as Aziraphale was about to offer his goodbyes and go into the changing and warm-up area, one of the other women looked up and over. Her fingers paused on flicking through social media. “Aziraphale?” she asked, tripping over the name. “As in... _Avery Fell_?” This name she definitely did not trip over. “ _You’re_ Avery Fell?”

Aziraphale felt all the colour drain out of his face and the air in his lungs dispense at once, standing in that key moment of silence and breathlessness, where anyone with even a quarter of a brain cell could see the shutdown in his expression.

Obviously, this woman didn’t even have that. Suddenly, even too suddenly for Crowley who baulked at her practically leaping from her chair, she was swiping across her phone at great speed, making agitated little noises with her mouth like one would for a dog or pony. She hit on what she wanted two moments later – “Hang on, got some buffering.” – and then she was setting it on the counter and turning it, pointing at the video. “You’re _this_ Avery Fell?”

Aziraphale inhaled sharply, his eyes catching on the title of the video:

**AVERY FELL ENDS CAREER AT NHK TROPHY (warning: blood and gore) +interview with his coach and recovery statement**

He let out a tight keening, choking sound and tears immediately budded in his eyes, but before the roars of the crowd could coincide with Tomo Kirishima’s triple Lutz in the far corner, Crowley was stabbing the video with a tense finger and shoving the phone over the counter; it landed decidedly on a keyboard, startling all three women behind the reception.

“Hey, what the fu-” the owner of it began, but Crowley beat her to it.

“You _do not_ show that video to him.” Crowley’s voice steeled, cold and unyielding, pulling off his glasses to set her with a squinting glare. “I don’t know _who_ you think you are, Madison Bridges, but I will make your life a living Hell if you _ever_ do that again.” Gone was the happy-go-lucky persona he played up in front of the receptionists, gone was the beaming smile and the charm – and it was replaced by pure unadulterated anger and disbelief at the blatancy of her actions.

Crowley stepped back from the counter, holding her eye before his attention reverted to Aziraphale. “Aziraphale? Aziraphale, do you still want to skate? We can go somewhere else instead—one of the other rinks in the city, or we can go to lunch, or back to the shop? Aziraphale? Can you hear me?”

Aziraphale grasped on to every word Crowley said, but his brain fuddled them, mixed them into the cheers and the squeals of the crowd—his thoughts flashed to the burn marks of cameras on his eyes as he’d strode down the ‘avenue’ to the barrier, waving politely to the clicking and stuttering. Around him, the reception disentangled itself from the present and there he was in Japan, beside the ice, taking off the awkward guards to line up on the barrier. The memory flashed, his name written in cursive across the flat white plastic of the hard guards: _Avery Fell_.

He’d had a thought that day as he stepped on the ice, one he remembered; it was iconic now, he’d said it in interviews, seen it inter-spliced in ‘tribute videos’, had seen it written into stupid lists of ‘moments before disasters’. The thought was: _What a name for a figure skater, Fell._

Later, he’d hear a reporter remark: _How tragic to have a name so accurate._

He shuddered back into the present with another blast of camera flash from his memory, grabbing on to the counter with a breathy inhale as Crowley’s hands – he knew those hands so well; they’d held him too much in moments too similar – folded over his shoulders and pulled him backwards into the firm chest.

Aziraphale turned in the hold and buried his face against Crowley’s tee-shirt, suppressing the long, loud whine working up in his throat as he felt worked hands fall from his shoulders and instead begin to wrap around him. One drew around his waist, and the other went upwards and pressed gently against the back of his head, covering the scar, folding him in.

The woman said something – something like, “I didn’t know it would affect him so much!” – and something like, “It were fifteen years ago!” – and lastly, “I’m really sorry! I- I watched it on TV with me nan—it were a big thing at t’time an-”

“Madison, just let it go,” said the other woman, the one who’d cleverly kept her mouth shut all this time.

Aziraphale shook with a burst of sobbing, his heart beating heavily in his ears from the panic – the phantom pain striking the back of his head – and the sudden realisation he was a thirty-two-year-old man who’d just collapsed into tears in the reception of an ice rink.

Crowley was speaking; the gentle pressure and hum of his voice through the fabric of his tee was comforting, and Aziraphale’s grip instinctively tightened, bunching. Crowley's hold did not lessen when he started to walk them towards the door to the warm-up room and another voice chimed in – from the skate hire, Aziraphale’s thoughtless mind supplied – and footsteps thudded over the floor and—was that Janet’s voice? Janet was hurrying them on, and a door was opening, and Aziraphale’s heartbeat faltered at the sterile smell of the first aid room.

He let himself be sat down, so long as he was holding Crowley, and only started to openly cry when the door shut and a silence – broken only by _shh-shh-shh_ – descended on them. Aziraphale breathed in Crowley’s cologne as he wetted the tee-shirt with fractured sobs, and did not conceal his gasping breaths any longer.

The arm around his head pulled away, and Crowley’s hand instead settled over the scar, touched it, and then his head was dipping down, his warm lips and cold nose pressing on Aziraphale’s hot forehead, before he lifted them away—and he was whispering the exact thing he always had before: “Aziraphale, Angel – listen to me. Wake up.” Crowley swallowed, and Aziraphale tensed, knowing what was coming. “Avery is dead, Aziraphale. You can breathe, now.”

This was not how this day was meant to go.

Crowley had had it semi-planned. They were going to go to the rink, skate around together for an hour or so, leave for lunch, head back to the bookshop and, maybe, Crowley was going to ask if Aziraphale would go skating with him again, and if ( _when_ ; because Crowley was quietly confident) Aziraphale said ‘ _Yes, that would be delightful, good fellow!_ ’ Crowley was going to smile lopsidedly and say, ‘ _It’s a date, then_.’ He might have even considered a wink.

Of course, he should have known they wouldn’t get past reception. He should have realised something like this would happen—he should have been more careful, should have used _Angel_ again and let Aziraphale berate him later for it. Maybe then he would have explained Madison’s obsession with Avery Fell. Maybe, instead of this, they could have laughed about it.

 _I’m an idiot_. Crowley kept his arm hung around Aziraphale, no matter how awkward a position it was; part of him was to a point when he either wanted to drag the other man into his lap, or lay him down in it instead, just to make this more comfortable for them both – but with how much he’d already screwed up, he didn’t want to take that chance.

Thankfully Aziraphale pulled himself to the surface a few minutes later. His throat had gone hoarse and his jaw sat gawkily, like his tongue was too heavy in his mouth. Reluctantly, he pulled his hands away from Crowley’s tee-shirt, the bunch of fabric billowing, and flattened his palms against the redness of his face, shaking with every breath.

Crowley removed the hand from around the back of Aziraphale’s head and replaced it carefully on his forehead, feeling the growing warmth there. “Headache?” he asked absently.

Aziraphale sniffed, but shook his head. “Jus—just hot.” He pushed into the resistance of Crowley’s hand, letting out long, shaking breaths in between mutters of, “One, two. One, two. One, two.”

“Three, four,” Crowley joined, trying to smile through the pain settled in his own chest. “And one-two-three, and one-two-three, and one, two, one, two—and run, step, swing – hold for six – and swing. Run, step, outside, outside, inside and run, step, swing – and start over from a run-”

“You forgot the _rise_ ,” Aziraphale interrupted in a mutter, his eyes slipping open. “Before you restart the pattern, dear, you step out of the swing and into a rise...”

Crowley breathed out a scattering of laughter. “You remember the _Dutch Waltz_?”

“I do,” Aziraphale admitted, dropping his head from Crowley’s palm to sit back on the first aid bed, spreading his hands on the rough paper beneath them. “I remember you always tried to start it from a pivot.”

Bravery was a risky business but Aziraphale’s face, while not in the heady mirth Crowley enjoyed seeing it in, was peaceful, calm. He bit the bullet for his reply, “You solved that issue for me, eventually; if the judges had let me test with you, I probably would have passed on the first try, instead of the second.”

Aziraphale flinched, just, and his tooth sunk into his lip. “Rules, my dear,” he said, blinking slowly. Then, “I’m so sorry, Crowley. I’ve really rather ruined today.”

“What?” Crowley took off his glasses and folded them; in the bright light of the first aid room he winced, but the need to show Aziraphale the certain kindness, the fondness of his emotion was worth the momentary jolt of pain. “You’ve done no such thing, Aziraphale. What happened is Madison’s fault—and don’t worry, I’m going to talk to someone about her behaviour.”

“Oh, Crowley, _you mustn’t_. She could lose her job.”

Crowley snorted. “I don’t give a fuck. What she did—she basically made you have a panic attack, Aziraphale!” He shook his head, slouching on to the uncomfortable green bed; he’d spent a lot of time on it when he was a kid, practically having to have something wrapped up every other day. His thumb, his knee, his elbow. A memorial accident involving both his shoulder and his wrist had had him off the ice for a couple of weeks, and that was probably the longest as a kid he’d spent _not_ in the first aid room because he’d been at home in bed instead. Those two weeks had been the downfall of his reading, as he hadn't fathomed how bloody boring books for seven-year-olds who could rotate two and a half times in the air were. He learnt pretty damn quick.

Aziraphale had been the opposite. He’d almost never been in the first aid room until he’d begun training harder, until after the _Junior World Championships_ , until quads—at that point, they could have seriously just renamed it: _Aziraphale’s Room_ , for how often he wound up there after a session.

Crowley brought himself back to the present, but Aziraphale hadn’t said anything and he was back to fisting the paper beneath them, flexing his fingers in an anxious two-step. “Aziraphale,” Crowley beckoned, and was allowed a momentary glance. “I was... I was told to protect you.”

“Oh, Crowley-”

“Please, Aziraphale,” Crowley raised his voice an octave. “And we extended that – we promised to each other—we promised to protect each other, and how I _have_ to do that is by making sure people can’t do _that_.” He reached out a hand to knead Aziraphale’s tense shoulder, feeling it give beneath his hold immediately. Their eyes met, even though Crowley could barely see an outline to his face for the blur of their surroundings. “The Arrangement, Aziraphale. It wasn’t just words, to me.”

Aziraphale raised his own hand and slid his fingers between Crowley’s, interlocking them. Crowley tried not to read into it; this was one of those times, one of those moments they had, this was all about comfort. This, to some, would mean something more—and it did here, to Crowley, pressing into the other man’s more gentler hand, his own rough against the smooth skin of docile work.

The heaviness of their joined hands fell off of Aziraphale’s shoulder and into his lap, where he cradled Crowley’s fingers in both hands, rubbing circles over the knuckles. “Nor to me, my dear,” he said finally, looking down at their hands, unable to meet Crowley’s eyes. “They were never just words...”

“Aziraphale, please, look at me.” Crowley reached again, and this time slotted his arm around the other’s shoulders, drawing him close—closer than how friends would sit, but they’d always been more than that. Crowley balanced Aziraphale’s head against the edge of his shoulder and they looked at one another – so close. They were so close.

It would take only the slightest of movements to bring their lips together. Crowley brought his arm further around to touch Aziraphale’s cheek with the backs of his fingers, stroking his face gently in their prolonged silence. Inhaling, Crowley let out a long sigh and he moved to settle his chin on the other’s forehead.

Aziraphale dropped his head down, a deep blush radiating over his face. It caused Crowley to drop forward a little, but he quickly righted himself, sure his face was also a little redder. “You don’t owe it to anyone to watch that video,” Crowley said, keeping his voice quiet. “Especially arseholes like her who just want a reaction, anyway.”

Crowley flicked his eyes down to see Aziraphale was biting his lip harshly. He jolted his arm, still around his shoulders, to make him look up. “Aziraphale?”

“I just...” Aziraphale reached out with his one hand – the other still interlocked with Crowley’s – and gripped the edge of the bed, the plastic-y, green cover squishing under his tense fingers as he clenched and unclenched; whether he knew he was also pressing Crowley’s hand was debateable. “I _thought_ I was _better_.”

“You are!” Crowley replied, pressing back. “You’re _so_ much better, Aziraphale. I mean – look at this; you’re in an _ice rink_. Take you back two years, and—and I couldn’t even bring my skate bag into the shop without you freaking out.” Crowley moved his arm away, but kept hold of Aziraphale’s hand, and pushed himself off the bed, tugging him off as well. “You’re doing _so well_ , Angel—and you know what’ll make you even better? If we grab our skates, get on the ice, and put this whole mess to one side. Whaddya say?”

Aziraphale pinched his expression, the demure look to him all but gone. “Crowley, there is no need for you to speak to me as though I am a child needing encouragement.” He looked away, slight hurt in his eyes, and swallowed whatever he was about to say in a long exhale. “I’m sorry, dear—that, that came out wrong...”

“I understand.”

“No, no – you’re only being nice! What an ungrateful thing I am.” Aziraphale tore his hand away from Crowley and crossed his arms with a shake of the head, turning away to grab up his satchel. “All I’m doing is completely ruining our day with my _silly_ inability to function like a _normal human being_. I’m so sorry—please, let’s skate.”

Crowley picked up his bag, putting out a hand to stop Aziraphale running away from the conversation. “No. You’re right, Aziraphale—it’s just been... a long time since you...” Crowley trailed off as the blush deepened on Aziraphale’s cheeks. “I work mainly with kids nowadays, ‘Ziraphale. I’m sorry.”

They left the first aid room, skirting the rink toward the warm-up area and changing benches, where Crowley guided Aziraphale to sit beside him. Crowley had, after much deliberating, chosen to bring his figure skates today because if he had a chance to show off he’d take it. He also hoped it would make Aziraphale more relaxed, as hockey skaters tended to outnumber the amount of figure skaters on the public rink. Now though, he wasn’t sure if ‘relaxed’ was even going to come into it.

It was a damp realisation to Crowley that this incident likely solidified Aziraphale staying well away from the rink for the foreseeable future. _Dammit_. He shoved his foot into his skate and kicked it back, slotting his heel into position before taking out the other and leaving it carefully on the bench beside him. Like most skaters, he had a ritual to getting his skates on; always sit facing the rink, always put on the right first (so you’re starting on the _right side_ of things), put the left on afterwards and then take off his soft guards and replace with the hard—as a kid, they’d always been told to take off the soft guards and put the hard ones on first, to lengthen the life of their soakers from the excessive cuts of the blade as they wriggled about trying to tie them, but Crowley had always done it this way and he wasn’t about to change that.

With his skates tied, Crowley turned his attention to Aziraphale to ask if he was ready. It became clear, immediately, he wasn’t. “What’s wrong?” Crowley asked, watching as Aziraphale kicked his blade back a couple of times and then reached for his laces, before abandoning the attempt.

“I – I can’t tie them.” Aziraphale bundled himself into his coat. He swapped a glance from his skates to Crowley’s.

“Oh.” Crowley hadn’t meant to breathe so loudly, ignoring the tentative chuckle from the skate hire behind them. “That’s all right. I’ll help you.” He pushed himself on to the matting and crawled over to sit on his knees in front of Aziraphale, minding his overactive imagination as he looked up at him and smiled. “Kick your foot back, then.”

Aziraphale did as he was told, having already swapped out his soft guards for the hard ones. It jolted his leg a little, and Crowley reached out to begin tightening the laces over the foot just enough to be comfortable. “Loose over the foot, tight at the ankle,” he muttered as he went, running a finger down the laces after completing the last knot on the third hook of the skate, giving Aziraphale a looser finish at the top to account for bend. “How’s that feel?”

“Good. Thank you, Crowley.”

“All right – gimme the other.”

Crowley worked the laces expertly, checking their lengths before he started. He unlaced the next one to straighten out a twist before going back to loosely tightening it over the foot itself, pulling it tauter at the ankle to avoid movement. Once he’d finished and run a finger down to check the give for the arch, Crowley handled the skate into his lap and observed the wear of the boot—the synthetic leather had more wrinkles than a Shar Pei dog, and he wasn’t wholly sure if the glue was up to regulation standards anymore. _No wonder I had to pull this lace so tight_ , thought Crowley, touching the rise of the skate around Aziraphale’s ankle. _It’s nearly completely broken down._

His fingers ached to remove the guard and look at the blade quality, just to make sure they were actually safe. “These won’t support you much longer,” said Crowley absentmindedly, moving his attention to the first skate. It was in a similar condition, with more wear on the toe from takeoffs and jumps. As the silence heaved around them, Crowley decidedly removed the guard and checked the blade; the hollow looked about right, and the toe pick still had wear in it. “You’ve had them sharpened recently? Who did it?”

“A skate shop,” Aziraphale replied primly, looking down at Crowley. “They did mention they were a _little_ broken down...”

“They’re practically illegal,” Crowley corrected with a snort, replacing the guard. He pushed himself to his feet and opened his bag to grab out his water bottle. “You should think about getting new ones.” Crowley realised too late what he’d implied – that, if Aziraphale was coming skating more often, then new skates were a must. He wouldn’t have given much thought to it usually, just the idle mention to a parent they would need to update; that was standard for coaches, and parents were normally more than happy to be told. Older skaters, too, were usually pleased to be reminded.

But saying it to Aziraphale rendered them into total silence. Crowley barely dared to breathe, watching Aziraphale from the corner of his eye as the other man looked at his laces, touched them, and then rested his hand on the creases of the boot as though he was really only just seeing them himself. He traced one, dropping his hand away a moment later. He pulled his satchel across and opened it, popping his shoes inside beside a copy of _The Children of Men._

Turning to Crowley, he said, “I’ll think about it, dear.” With that, he stood up and tugged his bag with him, as steady as always—like he’d not gone years of his life without the ice beneath him. “Shall we?”

“Oh, yeah, of course, Angel,” Crowley replied, a little lost on how Aziraphale didn’t look despondent, nor did he appear distressed; if anything, his face looked more open, his eyes flicking between Crowley and the ice rink. A youthfulness was present in him like there hadn’t been in tears. Crowley loved the sight of it, and wanted badly to keep it. The cold, world-worn looks did not match Aziraphale nor his nature.

Aziraphale shot him a lot and Crowley raised his hands. “Sorry,” he said for the endearment as they walked together toward the doors to the rink, pushing into the blatant cold with wistful sighs for the familiar sterile smells of ice and chemicals.

“Just as it was,” said Aziraphale quietly, unmeant to be heard by Crowley, as they went to settle their bags on a bench and go to the gate. The ice rink was nearly empty except for a couple of friends in blue skates trudging around the barrier together, adventuring away enough to nearly fall before rushing back to find their footing at the barrier.

Crowley gave Aziraphale’s arm a slight nudge. “Ready?” He leant down to pull off his guards, taking the last steps off of the matting and on to the ice.

Aziraphale joined him after tugging off his own skate guards. “I’m not used to those yet,” he remarked, fiddling with the springs. “I don’t know why the old ones aren’t popular anymore; they were fine for us.”

“You haven’t seen the video of _Yuzuru Hanyu_ stepping on to the ice with one guard still on, and basically hooking off the other while gliding around – have you?” Crowley asked, pressing his picks into the ice to skate up. He pulled to a stop and leant over the barrier to shove his guards and water into a pocket there, resting them. Aziraphale had followed him, and he took the white guards and plain bottle to put with his own.

“I haven’t,” Aziraphale admitted, sitting into his hips. “Although, the name _Hanyu_ is familiar...”

“Should be,” Crowley chuckled, digging the back of his blade into the ice. “Back-to-back Olympic gold medals...”

Aziraphale gapped at him. “Oh! Oh, of course! Like _Dick Button_.”

It was Crowley’s turn to gawk at him. “Aziraphale, we might be older, but we aren’t _that_ old.” With that said, and his—and Aziraphale snorting out something between a laugh and a cough, they took their leave of their guards and bottles and started skating. Almost immediately, Crowley fell into his easy rhythm of warm-up. He was often quicker with it than most, having been at a disadvantage (in his eyes – no pun intended) from a young age and needing to prove he could play with the big boys. He practically flew half the exercises, taking corners with almost hockey-like shifts of his blade.

He stripped off his coat mid-crossover and tossed it over the barrier as he passed; minding the stupidity of the blue skate-clad friends who’d paused to watch him tear around the ice. Crowley completed a last lap of one-legged slaloms and went to grab some water, turning to survey the rest of the rink. To his surprise, Aziraphale was snipping around at a speed to rival some of even the cockiest teens. Crowley remembered him as always having more grace than the majority, as being more fine-tuned to the elegancies of the shoulders, the fingers, the turning out of the foot—here, Crowley realised as he watched, Aziraphale _was_ doing those things.

Aziraphale was elegant even when rushing a corner, even as he flung himself around in a jostle of three-turns resembling something of a twizzle. It was clumsier than Crowley’s, which he silently appreciated for all his time spent on them over the years, but it still had a certainness, was finished correctly; the skater still knew the act of _performing_ it, and not just doing it. Aziraphale was not skating just to skate, as he idly matched the tempo of the ‘bebop’ scattering awkwardly from the speakers, but was skating as if every movement, every step, each edge was being watched and evaluated.

He was still a figure skater.

The revelation took Crowley’s breath away.

He stood there several moments, as the friends in the plastic skates came round again and told him he was amazing. It took all of Crowley’s willpower not to thrust his arms toward Aziraphale, who was at that movement completing some improvised step sequence, and scream at them to ' _Watch him! Look at him! That is a skater! That man was an international champion!_ '

So was Crowley, but... _Ngk_.

“D’you do competitions?” asked one; obviously not catching how intently Crowley was still watching Aziraphale.

Crowley put on his media smile and nodded at her. “Yeah. I’m Anthony J. Crowley—there’s a couple videos out there of me.”

“Whoa! Really?” asked one of the others, his ankles barely strapped into his skates. He took out his phone – astoundingly still intact, despite Crowley personally having seen him fall at least five times – and swiped his thumbs across the screen. “Wow! You’re... Russian? Wait, no, American?”

“What? No.” Crowley brushed him off, rolling his eyes behind his glasses. “Those’ll be from _The Rostelecom Cup_ and _Skate America_. I competed in them a couple years ago.” _A couple might be pushing it..._ He picked up his water again and took a long drink, hoping at some point they’d get bored and leave.

A second later though, much to his annoyance, he heard a loud American accent announce: “ _Anthony J. Crowley of Great Britain! Skating to an instrumental of Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust._ ”

 _Awh, dammit_. The friends crowded around the one phone and all appeared to watch in amazement as Crowley preformed in front of the mostly American audience, all of whom were proudly proclaiming _‘Wahoo!’_ with each of his jumps. He knew that program from the nuances of the song, so when the friends gasped Crowley could attain he’d just preformed his cantilever into a triple axel, triple salchow, double loop combination.

It had been his signature at the time. It had always gotten a great response from the crowd, and Crowley had practically lived for it. Thankfully, the connection to the video cut off a moment or two later and the friends whined trying to bring it back before the boy pocketed his phone and said, “So you’re, like, famous?”

Crowley shrugged. “Ma-aa-ybe. In my world, anyway.” He turned his attention back to Aziraphale, who’d taken to looking at his tracings. Crowley inwardly winced, knowing it was definitely a rouse to allow these brats to continue talking to him—taking up the precious time he could be spending skating with-

“Can I get a selfie with you?” the last boy pleaded and the girl whipped out her phone, too.

“Uh?” Crowley plastered the smile on again and nodded slowly. He posed with them, and they asked for permission to post them on their socials. “’Course.” With that done, he told them he had to go see his friend.

“Is he famous, too?” asked the girl, clenching her phone.

 _Not for the right reasons_. Crowley kindly told her, “He’s my friend. That makes him famous to me,” with a laugh, hoping they wouldn’t take it too seriously.

Although they evidently weren’t dumb, they obviously weren’t too smart either—or perhaps they were really just that polite. The first boy let out an ‘awh’, as did the girl, and the last boy just smiled. They parted then, happy to return to skating knowing they’d met a ‘somebody’ of the ice skating world.

Crowley shrugged off the discomfort burrowing under his skin and stroked his way out into centre ice. “Kids,” he muttered as he got closer, t-stopping.

“You like kids, Crowley,” Aziraphale reminded him as he pivoted around on his left toe pick. “Besides, they looked very taken with you—and you were wonderful with them, too – posing for photos and all.”

“ _Selfies_ , Aziraphale; we’ve been over this. The modern word is selfie.” Crowley sighed, dropping the topic indefinitely as he skated up beside Aziraphale. At once, they started around the rink together, yielding to each other on the corners with glides and crossovers. In the back of his mind, Crowley knew the kids were probably still watching them—maybe even videoing, if that one girl was the sly thing he thought she might be, but he tried to put away those thoughts and instead focus on what he had at that moment.

Which was Aziraphale on the ice beside him.

He was still in quiet disbelief at it all. Aziraphale, who’d once vowed never to set foot within an ice rink again, was skating along at his side, practicing fluid crossrolls and bracket turns and the occasional twizzle—which he assured Crowley he was determined to do _right_ at least once. When Crowley enquired what right meant, he was returned a polite, “Better than yours, my dear.”

Crowley resisted the urge to reply something stupid, to jeopardise everything this could be for a stupid jab, for a snarky remark. No. He’d decided as he’d tied Aziraphale’s skates earlier – this was what he wanted. If all he could ever have from the ice and Aziraphale in a conjoined sense was this, was public skating, was watching a performance without a judge in sight, Crowley would take that.

Unfortunately, because Crowley wasn’t allowed to have nice things today, he’d overlooked something which was about to hit him in three- two- one-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this what they call a cliff hanger? _Wahoo_  
>  also I will neither confirm nor deny if Crowley has a skate fetish ~~he totally does~~.
> 
> Facts of Figure:  
> 1\. Not really a fact, but you can check out the Dutch Waltz here ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na8a7kh_rxU ) from Kseniya and Oleg. although they don't show the infamous _rise_ Aziraphale mentions, which I was taught. It's actually one of my favourite dances because the speeds you get are really satisfying.  
> 2\. Yuzuru Hanyu is practically a god of figure skating, and is beloved in the community not just for it, but for his story of survival. I honestly cannot list all of his achievements, or better tell his story than the wiki article on him--nor can I find the clip I mentioned about his skate guard; I'm vaguely sure it was in a documentary on the run-up to Pyeongchang, though. If you want, you can watch his Olympic-winning free program here ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23EfsN7vEOA ) from Pyeongchang, skating Seimei.
> 
> Thank you for continuing to read, and I hope you're enjoying it!


	5. Viennese Waltz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale crossed the ice with certainness, a fleeting lightness Crowley hadn’t seen in the man in years; as though everything else was beneath him and he was the God of his own heaven.
> 
> Crowley had never wanted him so badly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanna say thank you guys so much for your comments, and I'm really sorry this chapter is late !  
> I left my plot notes for this and Through Heaven's Eyes at a friend's house :( As we're currently in lockdown and he has an underlying illness, I'm having to read them off a very grainy photo. This has slowed me up a little unfortunately, and is why Open For All (my Marvel/Spider-Man field trip fic) has been getting all my attention. Hopefully my schedule will return to normal soon, but in the meantime thank you kindly for your patience and understanding ! Stay safe and well

_Unfortunately, because Crowley wasn’t allowed to have nice things today, he’d overlooked something which was about to hit him in three- two-_

_One-_

“Crowley!” Beelzebub appeared like the night in winter; quick, soundless and all at once. They stood in the doorway to the rink, arms crossed, the scuffed tan of their boots ever the endearing mark of _Coach_.

Crowley blinked stupidly behind his glasses, before the realisation dawned on him and he dropped his head back. “Shit. I forgot to cancel my lesson today.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale responded, “Ah, well-” He started wringing his hands in the presence of Beelzebub as, obviously not content at waiting rinkside, they hopped on to the ice and skated right up to stand diminutive in front of their charge.

“Beelzebub,” Crowley greeted as kindly as he could, smile stretched thin. He clasped his hands behind his back. “Coach. I completely forgot-”

“You always forget something!” Beelzebub’s bitten accent – quarter-Russian, quarter-German, quarter-British, and quarter of everything else – clipped Crowley’s ears and cut over the ice as the music came to a low point. “You’re late for your lesson!”

Crowley calmed them. “I know. I know—look, can we reschedule? I—I’m here with...” He cast Aziraphale a look, trying to determine the right wording in Beelzebub’s murky presence. “A friend?” _Why did I make that out like a question? Why?_

Beelzebub pulled back, blinking, and finally seemed to notice Aziraphale standing there, doing a lemon back and forth to keep himself calm. “... Aziraphale?” they asked with quiet confusion, a bit put-out, but Beelzebub always had that look about them, anyway.

“He-hello Coach Beelzebub,” Aziraphale replied with a soft dip of the head, and then quickly smoothed his hands over Crowley’s back—giving him a light push forward. “My dear, please, you must go and have your lesson. I’m not terribly breakable, you know. I _can_ skate by myself.”

_But I don’t want you to_ , thought Crowley, turning on his blades to give the other man a conflicted look. He hooked a finger over the one side of his glasses and pulled them down. “Are you... are you sure?”

“Oh, of course!” Aziraphale rose on to his toe picks and tipped his head to one side, smiling gently at Crowley—minding not to look at Beelzebub’s piercing stare; they were doing the exact thing Aziraphale was terrified of coaches doing nowadays, which was evaluating him—his posture—his stance—his knee bend—his shoulders. It nearly sent Aziraphale, terribly close to cracking from the earlier incident, into fight or flight mode, and he wasn’t much of a fighter. “I would never want you to jeopardise your career, Crowley.”

“My career’s over, Aziraphale,” Crowley laughed, only to get smacked by Beelzebub. “He-hey! You said that to me just yesterday!” He threw Aziraphale a fond smile and skated across to grab his guards and water, practically leaping off the rink and slapping the plastic over his blades to pick up his bag and jog over to the other rink.

Beelzebub turned to Aziraphale. “I heard The Angels talking the other day,” they said, head tipped to the side; their pinched face was always cold, in both expression and colour. “They said you were here last Wednesday. I can't believe I didn't recognise you.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale replied, sitting into his skates. “I... was here – just for a few minutes though, Coach Beelzebub.” Aziraphale dropped his head and looked at the ice, at his skates; they were just as scuffed up as Beelzebub’s, if not more so. A twinge hit his head and he blanked whatever else he was planning on saying, instead looking up – into Beelzebub’s narrowed, concerned stare – and forcing a chuckle. “I mustn’t keep you—I, I’ve caused you enough trouble as is.” With that said and done, Aziraphale turned and skated off across the ice.

###### 

Crowley launched on to patch ice, tightening his swooping tie with an annoyed, gruff bite at a nearby kid who looked at him funny. She practically jumped as she turned to skate away from him.

Gritting out a sigh, Crowley hastened a quick warm-up around to test the ice texture; it felt better under his blades than public had, more grip but less glide. Slowing up as he neared the coaches' box, he gave a subtle nod to Frances and David embroiled in intense chatter about something edge-related on David's phone and then watched as Beelzebub finally appeared, stepping on to the ice at a different gate. Crowley skated over to them quickly. “Can we get this over with, Coach?”

“Want to return to your date, do you?” Beelzebub brazened, letting out a loose, jumbling sigh. “Are you warm?”

“Yeah, sure, why not,” Crowley replied, slicking back his hair. At their disagreeable set of the lips, he said, “I’m sorry, Beelzebub. I’m just – tense. Aziraphale had—well, he had a panic attack thanks to _that video_.”

Immediately, Beelzebub’s eyes turned sharp. “Who showed him the video?” they asked with a serious bite, eyes flicking about the ice.

“One of the reception girls – Madison. You know she’s _frantic_ about Avery Fell.” Crowley couldn’t keep the wince out of his tone, shaking his head at the past. Beelzebub had their notepad out and was scribbling a note into the margins, and Crowley couldn’t be happier; Madison got on his nerves quite a bit. She needed to be told it wasn’t OK to practically torment someone.

“OK. I will see to it, Crowley.” Beelzebub popped the notebook into the breast pocket of their coat; the thing had looked dour for years now, with rips all over the side where blades had caught from years of helping to tie skates, but the coach still wore it, day in and day out. Crowley was quietly sure the appearance of it either made parents think Beelzebub had _a lot_ of cats, or they’d had one too many accidents. Either way, most were terrified of the coach from who-knows-where with a shed of trophies.

“Now,” said Beelzebub, gesturing at the ice. “It's Tuesday, so I want to work on dance today.”

The lesson was going surprisingly well, or so Crowley thought, as he finished off another glide and the music topped the last strains. He skated across to Beelzebub, lightly winded from nearly crashing out when he went too deep on his edge, and found the coach was pinch-lipped and looking on with that unmistakable _do you want to do that again_ face.

“Was it really that bad?” Crowley asked seriously, eyeing the other few skaters about them lining up for jumps. He flinched when a young girl came out of her double salchow on the edge of her blade and crashed straight on to her shoulder. Frances was at her side, immediately helping her up and checking her head.

Beelzebub remained quiet for a time, toe-picking their way around to look at Crowley’s tracings a little closer, as if it would offer a higher insight into where it was all going wrong. Usually it did, but Beelzebub – for all their years of experience – looked just as puzzled, if not more so than Crowley.

“Should I do it again?” Crowley asked, the silence grating; he could be enjoying a nice skate with Aziraphale, but _no_ , he just had to go and forget to cancel his lesson.

“I think I know the problem,” Beelzebub said suddenly, ignoring that Crowley had even spoken. “You need to skate it with someone, to understand the pull and push of the edge.” They gestured Crowley down the rink, pointing out the various edge-changes which had occurred accidentally. “You’re leaning here, not pushing here, too slow here—too fast here! You aren’t even in time with the music at the start. I think, with another person, we could rewire your movements.” Throwing a glance over their shoulder, Beelzebub cruelly added, “You also aren’t extending and turning out your leg enough on the pushes.”

Crowley scratched an itch on his thigh and came up on their side. “OK. So, we-”

“We?” Beelzebub drew back, pushing into a lemon. “I can’t keep up with you. No. We need him.”

Blinking away the confusion, Crowley asked, “Him?” He glanced around the rink, trying to determine who Beelzebub was referring to—the only other male-pronoun users were a tiny boy who’d begun skating three weeks ago and Coach David, who was off the ice currently with a knee injury and only coaching from the barrier.

It struck Crowley a moment later who Beelzebub meant and he turned to them in a flash, pulling his glasses off with a wince; everything was so damn bright. “No. You can’t mean _Aziraphale_.” He stared, squinting, at his coach. He couldn’t quite make out their expression, but it looked much the same as always: A little bored, and unconcerned to whatever he was rejecting to.

“Of course I mean Aziraphale,” Beelzebub replied, and the blurriness of them moved to cross their arms. “He is currently the only skater here who is to your level, and who could keep up without getting in the way of the movements.” They paused momentarily, thoughtful, and then added, “Plus, as I remember, he was known for _finishing every move_ —unlike you! It would do you good to see someone who can actually extend their leg properly, Crowley.”

Crowley sucked in a breath, and let it out slowly. He popped his glasses back on and murmured, “Fine. I can try and get him.” Turning to the gate, he added under his breath, “I can’t guarantee he’ll come though.” Biting back anything else which shouldn’t be overheard by the gaggle of children at the barrier, Crowley stepped off the ice and pulled on his hard guards, walking swiftly out into the corridor separating patch and public. Passing the reception window, he paid for a patch session for Aziraphale so there wouldn’t be a delay on their return-- _if_ they returned.

Pushing open the door to the public rink, Crowley stepped into the cold and smoothly settled his hands on his hips, sauntering as best he could in tightened boots across to the barrier. Swinging his head about in search of Aziraphale, Crowley was about to call out when, in the far corner, he noticed him.

Just as before, Aziraphale was skating to the music. The track was low and calm, nothing like the scratchy beats of AC/DC he remembered from public when they were kids, and rose and fell in all the right places to accompany a performance in the climbing magnitudes of graces and movement which accompanied Aziraphale. Crowley could never imagine being able to skate to something like it, with a string-pause Aziraphale glided through, and then a sudden eruption of piano which he used for rising into a spin. The singer was going on about losing all their hope, or their love, or their sanity, and Crowley was fast losing any will to interrupt as he listened to the piano change to a fast, rising tempo—and Aziraphale brought himself down into a broken leg spin for the closing notes, rising at the last moment to shove his toe into the ice and stop on the last beat.

Applause burst out from a few of the patrons – those annoying kids – and Crowley found his hands, gloved for his lesson, doing the same. Aziraphale was smiling, polite as ever, and then skating over to grab his water with what looked like a fierce blush. He noticed Crowley a few seconds into his drink, tearing it away from his mouth with a gasp. Quickly, he gathered his guards and sped over to meet him. “Crowley! I—You weren’t meant to see that.” Aziraphale’s blush coloured from his cheeks and down his neck, and Crowley could only imagine how much further down it probably went. His stomach stirred at the thought, before he dragged himself back into the present.

“That was amazing, angel,” Crowley praised, trying to keep his jaw from gaping open any more than it already had. He patted the red plastic of the barrier for something to do, as else he was sure he'd be grabbing Aziraphale and pulling him into his chest--his arms--mouth to- _ah shit, there's no time for thoughts like that_. “Uh, I need- I need to talk to you.”

“How did your lesson go?” Aziraphale asked, stepping out of the ice rink, “Did you want to get lunch now? I’ll pay, of course; my treat after I nearly ruined our da—day. Our day.”

“Uh, actually.” Crowley removed one glove to rub the back of his neck, sucking in a long breath. Digging about in his pocket, he took out the wristband for patch and held it out to Aziraphale—who, for all intents, looked more confused than anything. Crowley clarified, “Beelzebub is requesting you come to patch.”

Aziraphale flicked his eyes up. “What? Wha-what do you mean – Coach Beelzebub wants me on _patch_? Why?”

Crowley shuffled, heat rising in his cheeks. He swallowed the nervous chuckle threatening to spill over his lips and finally said, “Well, just that. They... They want you – and by you, I also mean _me_ to skate this dance-” He saw the walls come up immediately, saw the guarded expression, saw the beginnings of Aziraphale’s breathing begin to rupture. “-Because I-I can’t get the steps right!” Crowley pulled his glasses off, hoping the pleading in his eyes was more visible than that in his voice. “And they think, if I partner for it a couple of times, I’ll—I’ll just follow the motion.”

Aziraphale leaned into himself, and took a steadying breath. He remained quiet, as Crowley jostled his distributed weight from one foot to the other. “Just a dance run-through,” Aziraphale finally said, wetting his lips. “Is there no one else you can do it with?”

“Not to my speed and level.”

“Dear, I would hardly say I match your _speed_ -”

“Aziraphale, you skate just as fast as I do—with better lines, and edges! Beelzebub would love if I skated _half_ as well as you—you know that’s...” Crowley petered off, eyeing the blurred rink over Aziraphale’s shoulder. “That’s always been my problem. I’m not—I’m not an Angel, like you.”

Neither of them breathed for a minute, standing together in the gate of the rink. “I...,” Aziraphale began, but he downed his eyes before he could finish his sentence. His teeth sunk into his bottom lip and nibbled along the ridge.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley tried again, reaching out to take his hands—to intertwine them a second time that day; he heard the other man's breath catch in his throat. The cool of the rink brushed around them, but neither of them had ever felt more than passing relief from the chill. “Please, help me.”

“Oh, your puppy-dog face – that’s not fair, Crowley!” Aziraphale untangled their fingers and reached up to pat them across Crowley’s cheeks, letting them sit a moment too long before he pulled them away. “Fine. I-I’ll help you—who-who else is over there? The Angels-?”

“No Gabriel, no Michael, and no Uriel,” Crowley confirmed. “No one who’d recognise you,” he added when Aziraphale flinched, bringing his arms around his middle. “The only coaches there when I left were Beelzebub, Frances and David.”

Aziraphale continued to hesitate. “There’s no... No chance of Raphael-”

“Raphael left over five years ago,” Crowley replied, turning away so he didn’t have to look into Aziraphale’s face and see the hints of hurt there. “He’s training at _The Cricket Club_ now.” He didn’t add that it was Aziraphale who helped get him there, that after everything happened he became the _It_ coach. Skaters travelled whole countries to have lessons with him, before he’d gotten poached by _Brian Orser_ and his crew to work full-time in Toronto. “You don’t need to worry whatsoever.”

It was quiet, but Aziraphale muttered, “Thank you.”

###### 

Crowley stepped on to patch ice and turned to offer his hand to Aziraphale. Out the corner of his eye he saw Beelzebub beginning to skate towards them. “It’ll take ten minutes, tops,” Crowley promised brazenly, pressing his blades backwards as Aziraphale stepped on to the smooth ice. They dropped their hand-holding when Beelzebub hockey-stopped beside them

“Aziraphale,” Beelzebub greeted, positioning their skates under them. “Thank you for agreeing to do this. In all these years gone, Crowley has still never managed to master any of your grace.”

“Ah, well, we’re all good at different things,” Aziraphale politely responded in a diplomatic fashion, dipping his head. “I hope I’m still able to live up to the expectations.”

Beelzebub gestured at the rink. “Take a moment to familiarise yourself, if you like. I just need a word with Crowley.”

“OK. What, uh, what dance is it?” Aziraphale asked, turning to the rink.

“Viennese Waltz.”

Aziraphale paused, shuffled his blades on the ice, and then gave a steady nod and skated off.

Crowley watched him go; watched how he avoided looking directly into the coaches’ box. He turned to Beelzebub. “Yeah?”

“How did you do it?” They set a steeled stare on him, chin dropped against their neck. “How did you get him over here?”

“I asked him,” said Crowley with a shrug, watching as Aziraphale turned like grace itself across the ice; fluid and seamless, speed and beauty. “It took some convincing, but I gave him a bit of a pout and he said he’d do a few run-throughs.” They both stood and watched as Aziraphale appeared to gently consider the dance he’d been given, and Crowley realised with sparkling clarity Aziraphale was _actually_ doing the Viennese Waltz. Although a few of the movements looked off from being out of practice, he seemed to have no issue remembering it whatsoever.

“Crowley. I would like you to answer me honestly,” Beelzebub said suddenly, putting the flat end of their blade into the ice to steady themself. “Is... Aziraphale considering coming back?”

“No,” Crowley said definitely, letting out a long sigh. He raised a hand to his face and pinched his nose, pushing his glasses up in the process but keeping his eyes firmly shut. “He’s never coming back - not competitively.”

Beelzebub didn’t reply, until they did, “If you say so. Go and collect him, Crowley, and get into position. I’ll go reclaim the music from David.”

Crowley nodded and retrieved Aziraphale from where he was lightly practicing his edges, moving them passed the coaches’ box and over to the starting position. “Shall I take the female position, then?” Aziraphale moved to the other side of Crowley and took his hand. “Do remember not to grab my wrist, dear, and have your hand flat on my back.”

Crowley looked over at Beelzebub once they were standing in the t-position and gave them a ‘thumbs up. The music started immediately, and Crowley began to casually count them in. Suddenly Aziraphale yanked him forwards with a mutter, “Too slow on your beats.” Aziraphale stepped seamlessly into the run and his three-turn, moving to change their positions into the ballroom-like stance as was expected.

Crowley’s hold, he shortly realised, was a death’s grip on Aziraphale – not that the other seemed to notice as he practically dragged Crowley through the dance, nearly getting his leg sliced on the swing from his slow reaction time. He picked himself up on the next run, smoothing into the steps. A few moments after, as Crowley managed to switch from going forwards in hold to backwards in hold, the dance progressed into its next lap straight past the coaches—both David and Frances had paused in their bickering to watch, and their skaters flattened themselves against the barriers—and Crowley noticed from the corner of his eye how the parents in the stands were watching, too.

It struck him, then, why they were causing a commotion: two male skaters were travelling across the ice (almost) seamlessly, as close and as easy as male and female skaters who’d partnered for seasons. The fact no one was recording them was a blessing. He felt his hold tighten immediately, and then he heard Aziraphale remark—“Relax, dear. You’re on the wrong edge—just pushing you on to—there we go.”

They completed the last few movements, Crowley breaking from their hold to glide out. His hand tingled in Aziraphale’s stocky grip. A scatter of applause greeted them as the music dwindled, petering out a second or so later. Before Crowley even had a chance to turn to Aziraphale and thank him for the edge correction, Beelzebub’s voice came over the ice: “That was the best you’ve skated to music in years, Crowley! Again!”

They ended up going through the dance a further two times, and then Beelzebub asked Aziraphale to take a run-through solo, so Crowley could better see the movements himself. As ever, Aziraphale skated for the judges. Crowley noted his extensions, just as much to watch the friction of clothes over tensed muscles, and concentrated on the gentle rise and fall of Aziraphale’s shoulders and hips. His turns were more seamless than Crowley could have imagined, barely making a sound as his blades cut through the ice. _And those boots are broken down as Hell, too. Just how would he look if they weren’t?_ He’d look better, probably—but how? How could he look better than he already looked?

His sex appeal, in Crowley’s corrupted eyes, was off the charts. His hips were flat in the turned out position, and the pressure on his shoulders gently eased them back and down, making his chest prominent as his neck stretched up and out. He held his face in contentment, a hint of a smile, his turned-up nose pointed directly to the ceiling. Without his trademarked coat, clothed only in a shirt and covered with a jumper to account for button mishaps, his full arms were on tight display; large and encompassing, with strength enough to splay them out in a sudden turn as though pushing back wings. Aziraphale crossed the ice with certainness, a fleeting lightness Crowley hadn’t seen in the man in years; as though everything else was beneath him and he was the God of his own heaven.

Crowley had never wanted him so badly.

Crowley’s lungs emptied as Aziraphale finished the Viennese Waltz in a shameless glide, dropping his arms back to his sides and tossing a glance over his shoulder. “Was that all right, Beelzebub?” he called, darting into a rushed twizzle _the bastard--_

“It was great, Aziraphale. Thank you so much.” As Aziraphale skated back to them, Beelzebub offered their hand. “Would you consider popping back for Crowley’s next dance lesson? They’re usually Tuesday—I won’t require a fee, of course; you would just be helping me greatly sort out _this_ mess.” Beelzebub nodded in Crowley’s direction.

Crowley couldn’t find it in him to fire back any sort of retort, watching as Aziraphale took Beelzebub’s hand and shook it gently, as was his way. “If it would help Crowley, I-I could consider it perhaps.”

Beelzebub clasped Aziraphale’s hand with their other, nodding at him firmly. “Yes! That would be wonderful! Let me grab your phone number, so if there are any issues we can be in contact.” Beelzebub broke their grip and skated over to the coaches’ box to retrieve their phone.

As they waited for the coach to return, Aziraphale threw a smile in Crowley’s direction. “Would _you_ like that, dear?”

“I—I would be very grateful,” Crowley returned nicely, trying hard to keep the squeak from his voice as he stared at Aziraphale’s face. “The next testing period’s in two months, so the sooner I can get the steps down...”

Aziraphale gave a chortle of laughter in response. “You never did like dance when we were children, did you dear?” When Beelzebub came back, Aziraphale quickly and calmly typed in the number of his ancient mobile. The coach gave a satisfied hum, shook Aziraphale’s hand again, and dismissed Crowley.

“And don’t think I’ve forgotten about that combination, Crowley,” said Beelzebub, as their next student appeared looking wondrously toward the older skaters with eyes which practically read like a _Disney_ character's _I want to be just like THEM!_ moment. “You’ll have bruises on bruises on bruises by the time we finish tomorrow,” Beelzebub promised with a faint upturn of their lips.

Crowley sighed as they left, muttering out, “Great.” The only joy from Beelzebub’s special brand of teasing came in form of Aziraphale, who snorted and burst into sniffling laughter. Crowley shot him a look over the top of his glasses, and then gestured them both off the ice. “C’mon, angel. Let’s get lunch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: ice dance is not my discipline.
> 
> Fun Figure Facts:  
> 1\. The Cricket Club ( _Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club_ ) is the rink where ~~our Lord~~ Brian Orser coaches, and is a major rink in the figure community alongside places like Sambo-70. Well-known skaters like Yuzuru Hanyu (Japan), Jason Brown (US), and Evgenia Medvedeva (Russia) currently train there.  
> 2\. Here is a link to a Viennese Waltz ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1E3yqkbmOI ) by Skate For Gold on YouTube with both a partnered version and solo version included, for reference. I've personally only seen this dance in real life twice. Videos do not do justice to the timing, speed, and precise movements required to make this dance look smooth.


	6. Angel Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > Avery deserved to shine under the praise, to be fashioned within it, to be bathed in the light of Heaven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look who's back! I'm so happy to be able to bring you guys the next part and, all going well, I hope to continue An Unknown Edge on a more regular basis now. Thank you so much for your patience, and I hope this chapter is worth the wait.
> 
> ###### A quick _previously on_ 'An Unknown Edge': (because it's been a while!) Crowley invites Aziraphale to go skating with him, only for a rather insensitive receptionist to send him into a panic attack after showing him the video of his fall. They move on to the ice, but Crowley, in his haste to get Aziraphale skating, forgot to cancel his ice-dance lesson with Beelzebub. He fails dramatically during it, to the point Beelzebub requests Aziraphale comes to help him. Afterwards, they go for lunch. This is where we pick up.
> 
>  **CHAPTER WARNING**  
>  Please, heed the tags for this chapter. There is described an eating disorder, as well as potent imagery of one, in heavy relation to the culture of sports, including the weighing of students. There are also heavy references to people in power (coaches, in this case) physically controlling their students' bodies and eating habits.  
> Eating disorders are serious, and if you believe you'll be at risk to triggering/an episode then I advise you only skim this chapter, and do so in a controlled environment where there is support available. You are a beautiful, valued human being. Take care of yourself.

###### 

**18 years ago**.

Crowley rocked back and forth in his skates as the hustle and bustle of the rink grew around him. Excitement charged the air. He could feel every muscle in him wanting to leap into a double axel—but no one was allowed on the ice until Avery arrived, which, according to the coaches and his snooping, should be any minute now. He rubbed his gloved palms together and twisted his blades in his black plastic guards, rising on to his toes in an attempt to look over Gabriel’s bulky shoulder.

“When is he arriving?” asked Michael, and Crowley pursed his lips as she moved to stand at Gabriel’s side; the two leant into one another, making a steady, impenetrable wall. “We’re losing valuable ice time, Gabriel. It’s not _fair_.”

“He’s probably just out in the reception talking to cameras,” Gabriel replied, sticking the back of his uncovered blade into the matting. “And _Robin Cousins_ an’—and _Torvill and Dean!_ ” His voice had roughened recently after returning from America, and he’d begun to bite his words out like a fancy-arse dog; the sound of it was starting to grate on Crowley’s sensitive ears.

“Thinks he’s so much better,” Uriel muttered, drawing close; they were only just slightly shorter than Michael and Gabriel, making the wall even denser. “I’m surprised he’s still training here with us instead of in, like, Nottingham or Grimsby—or ‘nother bloody country like _Canada_ or _Russia_.”

Gabriel snickered, “Just wait until the press dies down, and then you’ll see.” He crossed his arms, shooting the kids he was helping coach a seizing glare for their loudness. Turning back to Michael, elder than him by three years or so Crowley believed, he added under his breath, “We’ll soon see another Fallen Angel.”

Crowley drew in a sharp breath as the laughter from Michael and Uriel built. “Stop being – being mean about Avery!” Crowley butted in, shrinking in his skates when the three turned to stare down at him like watchful, vengeful angels from heaven. Crowley was still waiting on another growth spurt, but he was determined to be as tall as them one day. “He just won _the Junior World Championships_! He’s allowed to be a _little_ late.”

Gabriel’s face broke into that slimy smile. Crowley shivered beneath it. While it wasn’t exactly the same, it was eerily similar to Uncle Raphael’s smile; the one he used casually when chatting to parents, the one he shot everyone on the ice, the one he used when crouched down and chatting to his students, ruffling up their hair—too, _too_ close.

Crowley did not like his uncle, Coach Raphael. The man was slim, like him, with an impressive gait on and off the ice; a stride which barely moved; a glide that never faltered. But he had a cruel face, and expressions that changed just as quickly as the wind on Dartmoor, from that sleazy smirk to a glare in moments. He was a stickler for perfection – something Crowley could never attune to – and had his students practicing their positions through to the last stretch of the ankle and last flex of the hand. His students had the grace of angels – a statement said offhandedly once at competition, and it stuck: A small branching of the club who were purely Raphael’s students; who were all trophy winners and career-defining skaters from a coach’s point of view. They’d once been Raphael’s Angels. Now, though, they were simply The Angels.

Because everyone knew who coached them, and everyone knew who they were.

Crowley was not an Angel. He was glad to not be one.

Coach Raphael might get results, but it never looked comfortable to be one of his students. They looked constantly on edge during every practice, getting told they either had to get better or they’d have to find another coach. From what Avery told Crowley, Raphael physically corrected their stances and postures during off-ice behind closed doors, moving them this way and that like positioning dolls. To Crowley, even as someone striving for gold, it seemed incredibly wrong. Although Raphael was his uncle, he never paid Crowley any attention besides helping pay for his ‘larking about’, as he called it.

Avery told him things in confidence, told him that, although it wasn’t as normal anymore, there were still coaches who took the more _physical_ approach—because they cared about their students and getting the best results they could. Results. That was one of Avery’s favourite words, and a word Crowley found he’d begun to despise. Coach Beelzebub never used it in the way Coach Raphael did, like it was all that mattered. Crowley was glad about that.

“Here he comes!” Raphael burst through the doors, his smarmy smile pressing into his face like a knife against flesh. He practically dragged Avery through the doors behind him, hand around a lean wrist, and gave him a small push towards the gathered skaters, coaches and parents. “Avery Fell, gold medal winner of the Junior World Championships!”

All at once everyone began clapping, Crowley included. He pulled off his gloves, shoved them in his teeth and started to clap until his palms hurt. He slowed up suddenly, as everyone else cheered louder, and cocked his head to the left. Avery looked... different. There was something distinctly more docile about his expression, something no less kind but more – _done_ , like already he wanted the attention to go away (Crowley could relate) and for the ice to be his escape again, instead of the stage it had become.

The round of applause ended and the coaches returned to their students. A few parents jostled forwards to shake Avery’s hand and pat him on the back – which he flinched at, unconsciously. It made Crowley pause, sitting into his skates, watching his friend go through the motions of receiving praise but not preening in it as he’d once done. Crowley didn’t like that. Crowley thought Avery deserved to shine under the praise, to be fashioned within it, to be bathed in the light of Heaven.

Suddenly, Avery was in front of him. “Crowley!” he sing-songed, pulling him close—the hug lasted longer than Crowley would usually allow, but Avery wouldn’t let go; when he tried pulling back, a squeeze brought Crowley closer again, huddling his bigger friend like he’d break apart if he didn’t. “I got you- I got you-” said Avery, finally pulling back, digging a hand into his pocket. “I got you something from Stockholm.”

It was a tiny spoon.

Crowley smiled dumbly at Avery, who was blushing. “OK. OK. I actually got you-” Avery turned around and bent down to begin tearing through his bag. He stood back up a second later and from his fingers dangled a fragile charm: a rubber duck.

Crowley grasped it between his fingers and stared at the beautiful work; the cool texture of the metal on his skin was as pleasant as gliding over the ice. “I love it,” Crowley breathed, pressing his finger over the disguised gemstone sitting in the eye.

“The lady said it was opal,” Avery told him, and Crowley could believe it. Avery was wealthy – his whole family was – he could no doubt afford a small trinket. “When I saw it, I thought of – your bag.” He gestured vaguely around the space.

Crowley flicked his eyes across the posh bags, stacked beside each other like soldiers. They were pink and blue, green and yellow, white and pink—a lot of them were pink. Crowley didn’t have one of those bags, and nor had he ever wanted one. His bag was a battered thing he’d used since when school was important, when he used to carry books instead of skates. His eyes finally settled on it and its little mascot. A duck with an angry face.

His dad had bought him it before he’d gone to the store for a lottery ticket and never came back. Only Avery knew its sentimental importance to Crowley; everyone else just assumed he was poor.

Which he kinda was, but—

But that’s beside the point.

“Thank you, Avery.” Crowley smiled, bringing his best friend into another hug. He gestured towards the quickly filling ice. “Are- are you ready to skate?”

“Oh, yes, please! I’ve missed the feeling of our ice!”

Crowley and Avery pulled off their guards and shoved them on to the barrier together. Black and white respectively. All of the Angels had white guards; it was fact. Some other skaters around the rink did, too, but it was noted as bad form amongst the club parents to use white guards when you weren’t an Angel.

Setting blade on to the ice, Crowley went flying off. He turned, he twisted – and Avery followed him, skating together almost in sync – like pair skaters – with the distance of an arm between them, ever confident of where the other was. They jumped and spun together, laughing as though nothing had happened—but Crowley couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Sooner rather than later, the figure skaters were called off for lunch. It was the turn of hockey, and Crowley stayed behind a little longer to watch as they barrelled on to the ice at full pelt. It was thrilling to him to see the raw power and gruffness of the _Hounslow Hell-raisers_ team. After a few minutes of watching, he took himself off to the cafeteria where he happily sat down beside Avery.

Their lunches arrived, and Crowley threw a smile at his mum’s back: she’s already back to chatting to Avery’s parents. Everything is as it should be. “So, what’s next?” Crowley asked Avery, who’d been quiet since he’d arrived at their table—the wobbly one no one liked, but perfect for them to be completely, utterly alone. “Are you... going to train quads more seriously now?”

“Well, of course,” Avery replied, his trained accent fittingly mock-offended. “They’re the next big thing, Crowley!” He gave an audible huff, flicking his eyes across the room to where Coach Raphael was talking gamely to Gabriel, reaching out to manoeuvre his shoulders this way and that. “An-and Coach says I can probably land them—most of them, I mean...”

“Really?” Crowley asked, excited, following Avery’s stare, before diverting his eyes to his friend’s face—his smile immediately dropped, noting the... wrongness about it; the plumpness was almost gone. He attempted to smile through his concern. “That’s cool! Beelzebub has me training four rotations off-ice, but...”

“But you wipe out every time you attempt them on ice?”

“Coach Frances thinks they’re too dangerous for me,” Crowley admitted, a secret he’d kept since Tuesday. “She thinks my eyes...” He downed his glasses, immediately throwing the world into blurred-over chaos.

“But you can manage triples,” Avery replied, picking at his salad. He idly nibbled a singular green leaf, staring distantly at Crowley. “It’s just one extra rotation—you were landing double axels when I left, and the triple Lutz. You even had that triple-double-double combination!”

“Got banned from doin’ ‘em,” Crowley told him, burying into his hard chair with a sniffle he barely kept from exploding into a raw sob. “Coach Frances-”

“Who cares what Coach Frances thinks?” Avery butted in, the light of his eyes turning dark in the shifting light of the cafeteria. “She’s not _your_ coach. What does Beelzebub say? Do they think you can land them on ice?”

Crowley blinked at him, having replaced his dark glasses over his eyes, and replied, “I managed the sal on harness-”

“Well, then, you can land the others,” Avery told him, stern and unpleasant. His lips hardened into a line and he shoved his salad to one side, crossing his arms and taking a breath. “You aren’t blind, Crowley.”

“Avery-” Crowley hated the ‘b’ word—hated it with all the strength of God and Satan combined. Tears pricked his eyes, and one escaped down his cheek. He quickly wiped it away, inhaling to stop himself from bursting into tears. Their conversation drew glances – two of the bestest best friends fighting – but Avery stared them down with the look of someone who’d committed murder and would do again.

Crowley turned to his lunch, digging into the fiery chilli his mum made and brought in to be heated up; it hit the back of his throat, and he let out a few more tears, making believe it was the food and not the fight causing him to cry like a baby. He was a figure skater, for Christ’s sake! He didn’t _cry_.

When Avery’s aura had calmed down and he’d slumped into his chair a little more snugly, Crowley attempted to renew their conversation. “Why are you having salad? You hate salad – even _Gabriel_ doesn’t eat salad, and he lived in the health capital of America for four years,” Crowley said, his voice infiltrated with dense humour, but also the very slightest hint of worry. “And where’s your dessert? You always have an angel cake—don’t they have any?” Crowley sat up, straightening his posture, and turned around to look at the selection of food from the (admittedly very bad) cafeteria. “They have cake – why aren’t you having cake?”

“Because I don’t want cake,” Avery said, wrapping his arms around the pudge of his stomach. “I’m- I’m on a diet.”

“A diet?” Crowley replied, deadpan, raising an eyebrow. “You don’t need to be on a diet, Avery.”

All was quiet for a few minutes between them, as Crowley finished his food, and looked expectedly towards his mother. Seeing she was still conversing with Avery’s parents, Crowley instead grabbed his skatebag and dug through it, finding his little wallet containing a whole fiver, and twenty pence. “I’mma get you some cake,” Crowley said, energy flowing into his voice. “To celebrate your win at Junior Worlds!”

“Crowley, I don’t want cake,” Avery replied sternly, clasping his hands in his lap. “Please – don’t get me cake. Raphael-”

“Raphael?” Crowley chanced a glance across at his uncle, who was still rather preoccupied with Gabriel. He settled back in his seat, a few of the parents having glanced over but not taken any prolonged interest, and lowered his voice gently to ask Avery, “Raphael doesn’t... want you eating cake?” His heart fell, blinking harshly against the dark of his vision. “He can’t do that, Avery. Your parents-”

“He’s my coach,” Avery replied, pushing his salad even further away. “I-I, I have to listen to what he says; he helped get me to Junior Worlds, and he’ll get me to Senior Worlds—and Senior Olympics, too... I have to be in top physical condition if I want to win.”

Although Crowley was used to Avery’s accent and his high-flung words, the energy was nearly all gone—his tip-top, his rightly-so, his rather good—everything that made him _Avery_ was almost all gone. Where had it gone? Why? Crowley wrinkled his nose at the thought, unsure of Avery’s words but not liking them, or the idea that his uncle had prohibited Avery from indulging in a cake every now and again, especially after having won such an awesome title in their skating world.

“You can still have a cake,” Crowley testified, but Avery was quiet to the protest. “Why, uh, why don’t I ask him?” Once Unc—Coach Raphael saw how downhearted and upset not having a treat made Avery, surely he’d reconsider. Crowley himself didn’t have such a sweet tooth, but his uncle had never spoken about restrictive diets this extremely before.

“He made it very clear at Junior Worlds, Crowley,” Avery replied, soft and unenlightening. “They all did.”

“All?”

“The other coaches,” said Avery, tensing in his chair as Coach Raphael left Gabriel to come up beside Crowley’s mother – his sister – and give her a gentle, brotherly hug before grabbing Avery’s parents for a chat.

“Other coaches... at Junior Worlds, you mean?” Crowley enquired, lowly, as Coach Frances made her rounds through the skaters. Out of the corner of his eye, Crowley saw Avery grab his salad and pull it back to sit in front of him, and he grappled with his fork.

Coach Frances – _Head Coach Frances_ – rounded on their table a moment later. “Good work out there, boys; loved that illusion entrance to the camel-sit-pancake spin combination,” she praised, dropping her eyes to their plates. “Not hungry today, Avery?” She frowned, bending down.

“Just taking it slow,” Avery replied, faking one of his most charming smiles – the ones Crowley’s heart wilted at, because he knew they weren’t real; knew they were too big and too glowing to be anything spontaneous. “Crowley and I are talking all about Junior Worlds.”

“I see,” Coach Frances replied, though her voice was lit with something unsaid. She flicked a glance at Crowley and told him, “Make sure Avery finishes his plate before we return to ice, OK? Ten minutes.”

“Yes, Coach Frances.” Crowley nodded.

She left. Immediately, Avery pushed the plate to one side, swapping a glance from left to right before pointing across Crowley to the wall, “That bin—Crowley, be a dear and grab it.”

Crowley might not be public-school educated, might only attend the local comprehensive once a week, but he was smart as Hell and knew exactly what Avery was thinking. “Avery, you have to finish your lunch—you need the energy.”

“I had a rather big breakfast,” Avery replied, his voice highlighting in the rich tones of wealth and privilege. “I’m just- I’m not hungry, Crowley...” He side-eyed the bin, looked from it to his plate, and then back to Crowley, “Please... No one’s watching right now.”

Biting down on his lip, Crowley reached out a long, thin arm to snatch the bin. He brought it around and Avery immediately dumped the contents of his plate, bar a small, sad-looking leaf, into it. “Push it back,” Avery instructed, eyeing the rest of the preoccupied room. “Thank you, Crowley. You’re a very good friend.”

 _... Am I?_ Crowley thought, reluctance unsettling his stomach and tying it up in knots. He’d heard his mum mention stuff like this before, that if something... if someone he loved wasn’t eating properly, he should tell her – or another adult he trusted. Crowley rubbed his arms, looking from his empty bowl to Avery’s empty plate, and he tried hard to reason: _It’s just this one time; Avery’s fine. He’s tired, and probably only thinking about training_. God knows Crowley had gone without food a couple of times in his life, and still managed to somehow pull it out the bag when he got to the rink.

Avery was fine.

“So, you were saying – about the other coaches?” Crowley pried, storing all sorts of information in his head for later when it was just him and mum and he could ask her a couple of things, mention his concern—but, could he? Would she tell Avery’s parents? Would Avery hate him? What if he had to stop skating and Crowley never got to see him again? What if Un—What is Coach Raphael dropped Avery because of Crowley sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong? _Ngk_...

Avery was quiet for a few seconds, shifting his light eyes around the cafeteria, and then he said, “The other coaches – Oh, yes—the ones at Junior Worlds. Well. You know what they do, don’t you?” Avery asked a non-question, before going on to answer it, “They _weigh_ their students.”

“They _what_? They can’t do that!” Crowley protested. Ever the knowledgeable boy, Crowley could have gone on to become one of the world’s greatest thinkers, and maybe he still could. “That’s—that’s not right, Avery. That’s... Did they...”

Avery stared at him.

“...” Crowley didn’t exactly want to ask directly, but he felt he had no choice; this might be Avery’s life, but Crowley didn’t like the direction it was taking. “Did they weigh _you_?”

“Yes,” Avery replied bluntly, a deadness settling in his eyes from the conversation. “Coach Raphael thought it was a good idea, and all the Russian skaters said I should, and the Chinese skater – the one who came in second, you know? – he said his coach weighs him regularly, to make sure his weight is staying just right for jumps. With quads around the corner, he told me he has to lose another two pounds in bodyweight, and gain five in muscle—can you imagine that, Crowley? Knowing exactly what your optimal weight is for jumps? Well, I...”

Crowley couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He could barely contain himself for the stupidities of it—and yet, a little niggling part of him began the thought: _if I lost a few pounds, woul_ , but he very quickly squished it, taking in a deep breath as he looked at Avery with new eyes—and everything made sense; his jitteriness, the loss of his plumpness, loss of his appetite and the restrictive diet. “Avery,” Crowley said, voice filling with undaunted pain for his best friend. He opened his mouth to say something else, to make another attempt at something, a statement, but he was lost in his head, thinking of what this all meant, what this was coming up to, what this—

He had to speak to his mum, and Coach Beelzebub, and Coach Frances and Uncle Raphael—Uncle Raphael couldn’t let Avery do this to himself. This had to be a mistake.

Just as Crowley was about to make a statement, the hockey team barrelled through the doors of the cafeteria, already taking off all of their equipment to begin cool down. That was Coach Frances’s cue to call the figure skaters back to the ice. Crowley, slowly, stood up from his seat and searched out his mother in the crowd of parents, but she’d left with Avery’s parents for the local coffee establishment down the road. “Avery-” Crowley said, but found his friend was already gone, his guards clicking as he followed the other figure skaters into the rink.

Quick as a bolt, Crowley was up and following them, grabbing his and Avery’s bags (Avery never forgot his bag?) to take with him into the rink. The Zamboni was just completing the last few laps, the waiting ice dazzling from its renewal after the hard bite of hockey blades.

Setting down their bags in their usual spot, Crowley stepped up to the barrier to wait for the Zamboni to leave the ice, watching the crevices disappear beneath a fresh sheet of water, slowly hardening into ice. Working his jacket on, Crowley searched for Avery down the line of students busily waiting to get on, but he was nowhere to be seen. Despite the warming temperature of the rink for the session, Crowley couldn’t get the chills out of him, feeling like something was, any minute now, going to go horribly wrong.

Finally, Avery appeared from a distant corridor, followed by Coach Raphael. The two were, as coach and student do, talking. Crowley watched, all big eyes and beating heart, as Avery seemed to falter in his step and swoon, caught easily by one of Raphael large hands, his fingers sinking into Avery’s wiry-looking shoulder like teeth into prey.

“Coach Beelzebub?” Crowley called, as his coach wandered past followed by Coach David, all prepped and ready for the afternoon session. “Coach? Coach! I think-” but Beelzebub was too busy, too entrenched in their conversation to realise Crowley was even there at all. He bristled, knew he should run after them, but suddenly the pulse sounded and the session began.

Crowley leapt onto the ice after the others, starting his warm-up immediately. He searched out Avery, meaning to skate alongside him like they always did, but found his friend sluggishly skating alone at the barrier, Coach Raphael nowhere in sight. Pulling up alongside him, spraying ice with an ever-dramatic hockey stop, Crowley asked, “Why aren’t you getting warmed up?”

“I am,” Avery bit out, practically pulling himself along like the kids tended to do when they first stepped blade on the ice. “I’m just – I’m a little shaky—I think I’m just tired.”

“Maybe you should go home, you ninny,” Crowley said, fusing his voice with humour which weren’t unanswered by one of Avery’s sweet chuckles. When Avery faltered, stabbing the ice with his toe pick, Crowley leapt to grab him and help him back to the barrier. “You really don’t look good.”

“I’ll be fine in a minute – get off!” Avery shoved Crowley away from him, their push-and-shove catching the eye of the coaches. “Give me a minute to jus- jus- uh...”

“Avery!” Crowley shouted as his friend’s hand slipped off the barrier and he crashed down onto the ice with an almighty thump, disjointing the entire rink from their warm-up. The pop music screeched to a halt and suddenly Crowley and Avery were surrounded by the other on-duty coaches, along with some older students, gathering around as if they could help.

“Back! Back!” Coach Beelzebub shouted, waving their arms. “He’s unconscious! Michael, go and tell reception to phone for an ambulance—Avery? Avery, can you hear me?” Getting down on to the ice, Coach Beelzebub managed the situation, but did not begin to move Avery into the recovery position until they’d checked his head for bleeding. “Crowley, what happened? Did he fall?”

“No,” Crowley choked out. “He just- he collapsed. He-he—it’s my fault. My fault! Avery! Wake up! Avery, I’m sorry!” He sunk to his knees, warded off from grabbing his friend by Coach David’s arm. “Avery!”

###### 

**Present**.

Crowley dragged his finger around the rim of his coffee cup, staring across at Aziraphale as he happily ate through his beloved angel cake. “Mm, this is-” Taking hold of his napkin, Aziraphale dabbed his cream-covered lips in the same dainty fashion he was renowned for. “Mm, this is truly scrumptious.”

From being far off in his memories, Crowley brought himself back to the present to stare at his friend—at his healthy complexion, his gentle curves, his plumb face and the life in his eyes. “Yeah? Nice, is it?”

“You simply must have some, my dear—Wai-”

“C’mon, Aziraphale, you know I don’t go in for any of that.” Crowley smiled at him, his lacklustre for treats ever the bewilderment for Aziraphale. “You enjoy it enough for the both of us, and I vastly prefer seeing you eat my share, honestly.” He took a gulp of coffee. “It’s good. I like watching you eat cake, Angel.”

A deep blush lathered Aziraphale’s plump cheeks and he replied, “Well, in that case.” Picking up his spoon, he clinked his wine glass and called for a waiter, pointing towards his plate when the young man arrived to ask what they needed. “Well, my good man, I need seconds, please.”

When the waiter returned moments later, offering a choice of cake slices, Aziraphale made one of those cute noises—yes, those ones—and Crowley smiled, muttering into his cup, “That’s my Angel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you or someone you know have been affected by an eating disorder, in sport or otherwise, please contact your country's support systems and get help. You deserve to be OK.  
> If you or someone you know has suffered abuse from a coach/trainer in sport, please contact your sport's regulatory body (ie British Ice Skating) and report them. These are people in positions of power, **and it is never OK** ; do not believe it's 'just me' and 'I can handle it'. You should not have to. **Report them**.
> 
> Take care of yourselves <3 See ya soon !

**Author's Note:**

> AGES; Aziraphale is 32. Crowley is 30. Most of the others have similar ages.  
> note; summary updated as of 21/03/2020.


End file.
